Walreddon Manor

Walreddon Manor is a substantial manor house with complex building history spanning several centuries. A license for a chapel was granted in 1401, and the present building may incorporate earlier fabric. The front porch formerly bore the date 1796 with initials MF for Mary Fitz.

Building History and Development

The house evolved through three main phases of construction. The first phase comprised a rectangular hall with through passage and service end. The second phase in the early to mid-17th century added the rear kitchen wing, built behind the original lower end to the right, with the front wing to the right forming a cross wing. The third phase in the early 18th century saw the higher end of the house remodelled and possibly raised, with the front redesigned. Later alterations include the 20th-century removal of a partition between the entrance passage and hall, forming direct entry from the front door to one large room.

Exterior

The front is built of rough coursed granite rubble with Hurdwick stone banding. These facades have a modillion cornice under the eaves. The rear and left side are in random rubble, with granite dressings to the building predating the early 18th century. The roofs are slate with several stacks: a gable end stack to the left, a rear lateral hall stack, a gable end stack to the front wing, and a rear gable end stack to the rear kitchen wing with a lower stack to the side.

The main front is of two storeys and attic with seven windows. At first floor level all windows are 16-pane sashes with segmental heads in exposed boxes. At ground floor there are three similar 24-pane sashes positioned left and right of a six-panelled door in a moulded surround with fanlight and engaged Tuscan columns to each side with an open pediment over. There was formerly a gabled porch with four-centred arched granite doorway. The facade has a plinth and modillion cornice, with a gable end stack to the left with concrete cap.

The front wing to the right is of two storeys with attic and has no windows to the inner side. The gable end front has at ground floor a single granite light with ogee mouldings and iron stanchions with 20th-century leaded lights, at first floor a 16-pane replacement sash, and at attic level to the left a four-pane light. Large quoins feature on this wing, with the front wall in random rubble. The right side of the front wing is of three bays, with the bay to the right lighting the stair. At ground floor there are two two-light granite casements with ogee mouldings and roll-moulded mullions, iron stanchions and 20th-century spandrels with straight-cut step stops, alongside a 20th-century door with a similar two-light granite casement reset as overlight and with a slate pitched hood. The two bays to the left have 16-pane sashes with segmental heads at first and second floor, with a two-light casement at upper level to the left under the eaves. The bay to the right has a similar sash at first floor and a second floor two-light casement lighting the stair. The modillion cornice on this facade is not returned around the gable end to the front. The gable end stack has a shaped cap.

The lower end of the main range projects to the right. At the inner side this has at ground floor a tall two-light granite window with ogee mouldings and roll-moulded mullion with 20th-century leaded lights, and two-light casements at first and second floor with Hurdwick stone segmental heads. The gable end has at ground, first and second floor a four-light similar granite casement with flat king mullion and dripstone. Set back to the right is a one-and-a-half-storey addition with a 19th-century four-light granite casement; the rear of this addition has a similar two-light window. The rear of the kitchen wing is visible above this addition, with a rear lateral stack with shaped cap and two secondary stacks to the right. To the right, the inner gable end of the kitchen wing has a single granite light at first floor with ogee mouldings and a blocked attic light. Attached to the right of the addition is a further two-storey addition, probably of the 19th century, with ground floor lancet and basket-arched granite doorway and a three-pane light under the eaves. The gable end of this addition to the right has two two-light granite casements at ground floor with roll-moulded mullions and one similar casement at first floor.

The left gable end of the main range has a two-storey addition, possibly originally for a garderobe, with a two-light granite casement with roll-moulded mullion at attic level. The rear of the main range has an external lateral stack heating the hall, and built out from the rear of the stack is a two-storey gabled addition, possibly a late 16th-century or early 17th-century unheated service room to the rear of the hall. This has two two-light casements at ground floor and one at first floor, all in granite with roll-moulded mullions. A porch is attached to the right in the position of the former rear passage, with a granite doorway with elliptical head and ovolo and fillet mouldings, with a two-light granite casement with roll-moulded mullion to the side, possibly reset. Above the porch is an addition at upper level for a passage along the first floor rear, slate-hung with a single light. To the right is a wide gabled stair tower with stepped windows, two to right and left, all with roll-moulded mullions, those at ground floor with iron stanchions, and a blocked single light above. The end bay to the right has a lean-to at ground floor with 20th-century door, a lancet at first floor to the right, and a single granite ogee-moulded light under the eaves.

Interior

In the main range, the front door leads into the former hall, which has a marble chimneypiece to the rear lateral stack. On the end wall to the right is plasterwork (repaired) bearing the arms of Edward VI, with shield, helm and cross, with a lion and winged dragon to the sides. There is a moulded cornice, one central original early 18th-century sash, and 18th-century shutters to the front windows. The end room to the left has an acanthus cornice with feathers and 20th-century panelling. To the rear left is a late 17th-century dog-leg stair with turned balusters, flat-moulded handrail and moulded string.

At first floor of the main range, all rooms have bolection-moulded panelling and fireplaces. At the gable end to the left is a former garderobe, now closed, originally heated by the gable end stack. Doors at first floor are wide and eight-panelled, of early 18th-century date. At attic level, the doorway at the right end is ovolo-moulded with convex stops, with a studded door with strap hinges. The ten-bay roof (similar in construction to the barn attached to the north-west) has principal rafters and collars, some cambered, with one principal having a curved foot, possibly of late 17th-century construction indicating raising of the roof at this time. The front of the attic has a small granite fireplace with hollow-chamfered surround.

At ground floor, to the rear of the hall to the right, the passage between the hall and the cross wing has a granite doorway with four-centred arch, roll-moulded with leaves in the spandrels. The best side faces inwards, suggesting that this is the rear of the passage of the first phase of building, and that there was an early rear wing, entered through this doorway, before the early to mid-17th-century kitchen wing.

The front wing to the right has a 20th-century reconstructed dog-leg stair, with some solid wooden treads remaining from an earlier stair at ground floor level. At the base is a dog-gate, probably 17th-century, in four sections of splat baluster design, formerly set at the base of the rear stair. At ground floor, the front room in the wing has reconstructed bolection-moulded panelling, also present at first floor, with a bolection-moulded fireplace at the gable end.

The lower end was not remodelled in the 18th century. At ground floor, the end room to the right has a heavy studded door, formerly giving access to the rear stable yard. There is a large fireplace to the rear with flat granite lintel, hollow-chamfered and stopped, with granite jambs and original pot-jack. Doorways to front and rear are in granite with four-centred arch, hollow-chamfered. There are three chamfered cross beams with run-out stops. At first floor, the room has four cross beams, chamfered, and a granite fireplace to the rear with flat chamfered granite lintel. The room is partitioned.

The rear kitchen wing of the mid-17th century has a fireplace to the inner side with chamfered granite basket arch. To the rear of the hall, the unheated service room was converted for use as a back parlour.

Plan

The plan was formed by accretion. Originally there was a through passage with upper end to the left and lower end to the right. The hall was heated by a rear lateral stack, and the service end to the right also retains a rear lateral stack. There is a gabled stair tower to the rear of the upper end. The wing at the front of the lower end to the right is of one room plan, heated by a gable end stack, with a stair giving access to the upper floors of the cross wing set at the right end. The rear kitchen wing is entered from the rear of the original lower end. The 18th-century remodelling created a symmetrical front and rooms at first floor; the roof construction visible at attic level is of late 17th or early 18th-century date. Later 18th and 19th-century alterations included additions to the rear of the kitchen wing and to the rear of the upper end, forming additional service areas. Twentieth-century alterations to the plan include opening the passage to form one large room from the former hall and passage, and the mid-20th-century removal of the front porch.