2, Watermoor Road

2 Watermoor Road is a house, now in office use, that dates from the early and mid to late 17th century with alterations from the mid-18th century and 20th century. There is some archaeological evidence of an earlier building on the site. The northern bay is now part of 1 Querns Lane.

The building is constructed from coursed, squared limestone rubble to the front, with stone slate roofs. It has a stone ridge stack with three diagonally-set ashlar flues to the north and a pair of ashlar ridge stacks to the south.

The house is rectangular in plan, occupying a corner plot and facing Watermoor Road. It is single depth inside, with a large entrance hall at the centre, one principal room to the south and one to the north. The northernmost room now forms part of 1 Querns Lane.

The building is two storeys and attic with three gabled bays to the east. The ground and first floor windows are tripartite with stone mullions and flat unmoulded surrounds, containing six-over-six sashes flanked by four-over-four sashes. There is a roughly central six-panel door with an open pediment on brackets forming a hood. The gables contain two-light stone-mullioned windows with hoodmoulds; one is ovolo-moulded, one is hollow-chamfered, and the southern one is blocked. The south side of the main range has a mid-18th century three-storey canted bay with eight-over-two sashes to the ground floor, eight-over-eight sashes to the first floor and six-over-six sashes to the attic. The rear elevation has two short gabled wings: the northern has a two-light ovolo-moulded stone-mullioned window, the southern has a two-light hollow-chamfered stone-mullioned window, two two-light chamfered stone-mullioned windows to the first floor below, and one similar window and one twelve-over-twelve pane sash to the ground floor. A small flat-roofed tile-hung extension of the mid-20th century extends to the rear elevation.

The interior contains a late-17th century closed-string open-well staircase with heavy turned balusters set towards the rear and south of the building. The central hall has a late-18th century timber fireplace and moulded cornice that appears throughout much of the ground and first floors and stairwell. The principal room to the south has a late-18th century stone chimneypiece and 17th century panelling with some 18th century alterations including an alcove cupboard to the right of the chimneybreast. The ground floor room in the third bay towards the north, possibly part of the former kitchen, has an alcove with a marble shelf and small inset marble basin, probably dating from the early 18th century. The first floor contains several rooms off a corridor to the rear. The room in the third bay towards the north, now subdivided, has an early-17th century stone chimneypiece with elaborate carving, moulded Tudor-arched opening and a late-18th century grate. The room has early-17th century painted panelling, a foliate plaster frieze and two plastered beams with decorated soffits in a matching foliate design, one now contained within the adjoining room. The attic storey has a series of interconnecting rooms with exposed roof structure showing trusses formed from paired principal rafters with tie beams, twin purlins and high collars. The northernmost bay room is unimproved.

The building was formerly Chesterton Manor and appears to have originated in the early 17th century, though there is some archaeological evidence of an earlier manor on the site. Alterations were made in the later 17th century and again in the 18th century, though much of the house as it stands today represents the 17th century phases. The house was originally a four-bay structure running north-south along Watermoor Road, with its northern bay occupying the corner with what is now Querns Lane. During the early 19th century a warehouse, owned by the local Bowly family and used as a cheese warehouse, was built along Querns Lane at a short distance from the northern bay of Chesterton Manor. A map of the 1840s shows both buildings in place with a gap where the linking building which now forms part of 1 Querns Lane would be constructed in the 1850s. The Ordnance Survey map series shows that the bay now forming part of 1 Querns Lane may have been separate from the main house from as far back as 1875, though it is also shown as a separate unit from the 1850s infill block which forms part of 1 Querns Lane. The two buildings were formally divided in 2003.