Cory Manor

Cory Manor is a manor house dating from the late 16th to early 17th century, located in West Putford village. The building was originally constructed as an open hall house, but the hall was subsequently ceiled. A billiard room was added and the service area extended in the late 19th to early 20th century. The house underwent extensive restoration in the late 1940s, architect John Macgregor, during which the hall ceiling was removed. The roofs were replaced at this time.

The house is constructed of random rubble local stone with a shallow pitch bitumenised slate roof, hipped to the left with external stone stacks. There is an external stone stack on the rear elevation and a stone stack at the north gable end of the north-west wing, along with a brick chimney. The building is two storeys with a plan of 4:1 bays. The east-facing front comprises the main block with a coeval framed stair at the north end giving access to a crosswing, of which the date of the north-east range is uncertain. A screens passage with corridor between pantry and buttery provides access to the kitchen. Twentieth-century extensions on the south-west, linked by wall to a billiard room adjoining the north-west wing, form a courtyard.

Most windows were renewed in the 20th century and are leaded, with one notable exception: a first-floor 4-light stone mullioned window survives. Other windows include 3-light metal, 2-light above the entrance, and 3-light stone end bay right with mullioned and transomed window. The gable end of the wing contains a mullioned and transomed window. Ground floor features include a 4-light end bay left, a small metal window set in a larger opening, and to the left of the entrance an original 4-light hollow chamfered mullioned window with king mullion under a relieving arch with string course hoodmould. The main block retains remains of a plinth on the facade, though not to the wing, which has a 4-light stone mullioned window on the ground floor. The entrance is via a round-headed doorway of uncertain date. Some 18th and early 19th century leaded metal casements survive on the first floor west front. The 5-light ovolo-moulded mullioned window in the south gable end of the north-west wing is thought to be mid-20th century and is in decay. A tiny 2-light chamfered wooden window appears on the north front.

Internally, the open hall features good plasterwork with an overmantel decorated with supporters, strapwork and coat of arms, badly decayed in its lower section. An open fireplace has chamfered granite lintel and chamfered jambs, with a projection on the rear elevation and a pointed arch window to the right inserted in the mid-20th century. The screens passage wall was rebuilt. Jacobean-style panelling to a minstrel's gallery is of uncertain date. A through passage between pantry and buttery retains an original boarded partition with moulded arch doorframes. A newel stair stands in the western room. The kitchen, now parlour, contains an open fireplace with chamfered lintel and cloam oven recess.

The framed staircase to the north of the hall has plain newel posts with no early features visible in rooms on the east front. To the west, a library displays exposed ceiling joists and an impressive Jacobean-style overmantel, probably of 19th-century date. The 4-bay billiard room was re-roofed in the 1950s and features a handsome 19th-century door with decorative hinges opening onto the courtyard. The first floor retains good plasterwork overmantel contemporary with that in the hall, a chamfered wooden lintel to an open fireplace, and remains of plasterwork frieze, probably originally with a barrel vault roof now replaced with a principal rafter roof.

The roof of the main block displays 7 or 8 pairs of collar beam trusses, with the bases of 2 curved principals visible above the screens passage in the hall. Various features were incorporated into the house in the 1950s and earlier in the century. A granite porch was added in 1934 and has since been removed.

The house is believed to have been built by a member of the Prideaux family sometime between 1576 and 1611.