Fremington Manor House Including Entrance Gateway Attached To West Side

Fremington Manor House Including Entrance Gateway

Manor house with attached entrance gateway, designed by E Newton in 1881. Built in brick with ashlar dressings, the building features slate roofs concealed behind a tall parapet above a modillion cornice. Scattered brick stacks with moulded caps and recessed panelled sides to the shafts, the principal stacks corbelled Lombard-style at the top, add vertical emphasis.

The building follows an overall large rectangular plan orientated north to south. The long west side serves as the entrance elevation, containing the entrance hall and staircase. The regular rectangular form is broken on the opposite east side by a two-storey bow and a three-bay projection. The east side extends further north than the west, screening an L-shaped stable block which has been converted for habitation. The south end is treated as an imposing symmetrical garden front.

In Wrenaissance style, the manor is two storeys with an attic storey. The symmetrical south facade contains seven bays with ashlar quoins and a stone balustrade to the parapet over the central two bays, surmounted by two classical urns. All windows have eared bolection moulded architraves with grotesque head keystones and sill bands supported by moulded console brackets. All windows are 18-paned hornless sashes; the upper storey windows feature cambered heads. The central doorway is flanked by fluted pilasters with Corinthian capitals, and has a large central grotesque head keystone, dentilled cornice and pediment with short colonnettes. The wings of the pediment form grotesque heads flanking a central heraldic achievement. The door itself is 15-paned with three-quarter glazing and a two-panelled base. Lead rainwater heads and pipes flank the three central bays.

The east facade shows a fenestration pattern of 1:3:2:3:5 windows. The left-hand three windows form a two-storey bow with giant fluted Corinthian moulded brick pilasters and a moulded brick panelled frieze at first floor level; the three central panels contain moulded brick crests. The right-hand three windows break forward. All window openings have rubbed flat brick arches and tall sashes with glazing bars, except for ground floor French windows in the bow. At the north-east corner stands a pedimented bell tower with a semi-circular arched bell-opening at the top, featuring a keystone. A brick courtyard wall extends northward with an embattled parapet corbelled out Lombard-style.

The west side features a clock turret at the centre of the former stable block, topped with a cupola. The principal west facade is divided into seven bays by plain pilasters. A short bay at the left end contains a sash on each floor, followed by two bays with two sashes on each floor. The centre bay has two sashes above an impressive doorway with a large decorative fanlight and heavily moulded surround, above a foliated frieze with a large grotesque head to the keystone. Fluted pilasters with Corinthian capitals flank a heavy door with faceted lozenge design and four-paned sidelights. The three right-end bays contain a round-arched stair window to the centre, with a single sash on each floor to the left and a blind bay to the right. The entrance gateway extends westward from the centre of this facade, featuring a semi-circular arched gateway with a winged pediment above the dentilled cornice.

Interior

The interior contains some seventeenth and eighteenth-century panelling, overmantles and doors, acquired for the new house. The entrance hall, main staircase hall and drawing room (formerly a ballroom) are the finest rooms.

The entrance hall is lined with heavy seventeenth-century style panelling and features an elaborate two-tier chimneypiece with decorative panelling. The lower tier displays blind semi-circular arched tracery flanked by carved caryatids and fluted Ionic pilasters; fluted Ionic pilasters also flank the fireplace. A tall niche with carved keyblock occupies the south wall, decorated with linen fold detail to the double doors on the left. A trabeated ceiling features carved bosses at the intersections. The rear of the entrance door shows seventeenth-century scratch-moulded framing and ledging.

The stair hall contains a dog-leg staircase with heavy barley sugar balusters and newels topped with flame finials. Trailing foliage adorns the carved toprail and moulded handrail. Panelled walls and decorative plasterwork ceiling feature rectangular form with large foils at each end, a central mythical beast and foliated frieze. A door surround at the head of the stairs has engaged shafts and a multifoiled decorative archway.

The former ballroom displays a heavy modillion cornice and an Adam style oval centrepiece with spaced fluted pilasters bearing ornate capitals. A rectangular panel flanked by roundels depicting mythical scenes adorns the north wall; a similar panel and single roundel appear on the south wall. Dado panelling and a chimneypiece flanked by pilasters with double rams head capitals and diminishing drops are present. Two door surrounds at the west end feature painted decoration to the architraves and ornate pediments on each side of a central panel with similar decorative pediment. Some bedrooms on the south side contain panelling; one features an eighteenth-century Adam style overmantle with a central urn in a scrolling foliage surround.