Fuidge Manor

Fuidge Manor is a large house, formerly a manor house, located in Spreyton. The building has a complex history, with a core that was much rebuilt during the 18th to early 19th century, then modernised and enlarged in the late 19th century. It is constructed of plastered stone rubble, possibly with brick, and has stone rubble or brick stacks with brick chimneyshafts supporting a slate roof.

The house is built on a gentle slope facing east-south-east, with a two-storey structure throughout. The plan is centred on a 2-room arrangement with an entrance hall and main stair positioned centrally. These main rooms have outer axial stacks backing onto rooms either side. In the late 19th century the entrance hall and right main room were modified. A long dining room with a small unheated service room extends to the right (north), and a service corridor runs along the back of both floors behind these rooms. A service block under twin parallel roofs projects at right angles to the rear, with the kitchen occupying the left (southern) part and featuring a large gable-end stack. The main block continues further left (south) of the main rooms with two additional rooms. The main block appears to have been built in the late 18th to early 19th century, though the left (southern) end has undergone radical alteration in the late 19th and 20th centuries. One 17th-century window survives in the main block; the kitchen is probably also 17th-century in origin.

The exterior is distinguished by a central section that breaks slightly forward from the rest of the facade. This section features stucco quoins, a plat band at first floor level, a bracketed eaves cornice, and a plain parapet. The front elevation displays an attractive and symmetrical 3:1:3 window arrangement. The outer sections have full-height projecting curved bays with tall original sash windows—15-pane sashes (6/9 configuration) on the ground floor and 12-pane sashes on the first floor. Between these bays is the principal front door, set within an elliptical arch and containing an original 6-panel door flanked by sidelights and topped by a fanlight with an ornate radial pattern of glazing bars. A gabled Doric porch in front has been partly rebuilt in the 20th century, with another 12-pane sash window above it. The four-window section to the right contains mostly original 16-pane sashes and includes a secondary 6-panel door with an overlight in panelled reveals and timber doorcase. The five-window section to the left contains mostly 20th-century replacement sashes, though a couple of ground floor examples are probably 19th-century. The main block roof is continuous and hipped at each end. The rear elevation includes a variety of 19th-century casements and 16-pane sashes, and at first floor level towards the north end of the main block there is a 17th-century oak 4-light window with ovolo-moulded mullions.

The interior contains a considerable amount of 19th-century joinery and decorative detail, with the finest examples found in the main rooms. A 19th-century open-string stair with shaped stair brackets, square newel posts, and splat balusters leads upwards. The right main room features an open arcade of Doric posts and a marble chimneypiece. The primary evidence of 17th-century work appears in the kitchen, where there is a large stone fireplace with a soffit-chamfered and step-stopped oak lintel. A massive oven and copper boiler alongside date to the 19th century. The axial ceiling beams display double-ovolo mouldings; these are of 17th-century character, though they may have been reset. The roof was not inspected at the time of survey.