Chittlehamholt Manor

Chittlehamholt Manor is a large house, largely dating from the mid to late 19th century, although a rear wing is believed to contain earlier fabric. The house is constructed of unrendered stone rubble with ashlar dressings, and has slate roofs with crested ridge tiles. It features richly carved bargeboards with a trailing foliage design on the front gables, and plain bargeboards on the rear gables. Tall stacks are present, with unrendered brickwork to the rear service wings and rendered surfaces to the front range, topped with moulded ashlar caps and yellow clay pots. The building is laid out asymmetrically, with three principal rooms along the garden front, comprised of two tall, gable-ended wings flanking a recessed short connecting bay. An axial rear passage leads to a principal entrance and stairhall on the left side. An adjoining service block is situated slightly to the right of the front wing; a rear left-hand service wing, with a lower ridge line, completes a rear courtyard plan, then returns to the left to form an additional two-storey, two-room plan range with a lofted integral outbuilding at the left end. This final range faces the farm courtyard at the rear of the house; it has a separate entrance, suggesting it was originally intended for independent farm occupation. The house is two storeys high, and the right-hand wing has an additional attic storey. Each wing features large four-pane sash windows over canted ashlar bay windows, with four-pane sashes extending to ground level, and zig-zag decoration to the lintels. The left-hand wing has a blank shield to its gable. The recessed central bay has a sixteen-pane sash with a hoodmould above a slate verandah with a leanto roof, and a French bay-window with margin glazing bars. On the left side is a semi-circular arched window with a moulded surround, above an Ionic style porch with fluted columns, a moulded entablature with paterae to the frieze and pilasters flanking a segmental arched doorway with a four-panelled door. The rear range, facing the courtyard, has a slated gabled roof over a 19th-century porch with a two-centred arched doorway and plank door, and a three-window range of 19th-century three-light casements. A circular window with radiating glazing bars is set into the gable end. The interior retains 19th-century fittings, including panelled doors, decorative moulded plaster cornices to the principal rooms and ceiling to the left-hand front room, marble chimneypieces, and a geometrical staircase with wrought-iron balusters and a wreathed handrail. A room to the left of the entrance hall contains two stop-chamfered cross ceiling beams supported by slender cast iron spiral-turned columns with run-out stops.