1, Querns Lane

1 Querns Lane is a building of mixed dates now used as offices, comprising three distinct sections: a bay from a 17th-century house, a bay from around 1850, and a two-bay section from an early 19th-century warehouse. The 17th-century bay is of particular architectural importance; the remainder is also of special interest though of lesser significance.

The 17th-century bay is constructed from squared and coursed limestone, while the 1850s section uses rendered limestone rubble, and the warehouse section employs coursed limestone with dressed limestone quoins. All sections have Cotswold stone slate roofs. The complex plan reflects the building's corner site and the piecemeal assembly of its components, with a rear extension that partly oversails the adjacent property at 3 Querns Lane.

On the north side facing Querns Lane, the 17th-century bay rises two storeys with an attic. It has a nine-pane fixed-light window in a plain reveal with exposed timber lintel and stone cill at ground floor, a blocked window at first-floor level, and a two-light ovolo-moulded stone mullion window in the gable. The circa 1850 section is lower, of two storeys with a plain pitched roof and low parapet, featuring a round-arched doorway and tripartite timber sash windows with six-over-six panes flanked by two-over-two sashes on both floors. The warehouse section rises two storeys with attic to a higher level than the adjacent section, with multi-paned timber casement windows—three-light in the eastern bay and two-light in the western—and raking half-dormers in the attic. The rear elevation of the warehouse section has round windows, and both the 19th-century infill and warehouse sections have substantial 20th-century extensions.

Interior features include mid-19th-century fireplaces and joinery in the ground and first-floor rooms of the 17th-century block. The 1850s central bay contains an open-string stair with bracketed detail rising from ground to first floor in the front hallway, which features a round-arched niche and an Edwardian fretwork alcove. A curved corridor clad in matchboard crosses the warehouse bay to provide access to the rear extension. The landing above the hall contains an octagonal glazed lantern with coloured and etched glass. The warehouse bay retains exposed chamfered beams and a 19th-century range in one ground-floor room. The attic storey of the 17th-century bay has a complex roof structure continuing from the adjacent building.

Historically, the building incorporates the northernmost bay of Chesterton Manor, which originated in the early 17th century, with archaeological evidence suggesting an earlier manor on the site, though this is not clearly evident in the current fabric. Later alterations were made in the later 17th and 18th centuries, though the building as it stands today largely represents the 17th-century phases. Originally, the house was a four-bay structure running north-south along Watermoor Road, with its northern bay occupying the corner with the road now known as 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, some distance from the northern bay of Chesterton Manor. A map of the 1840s shows both buildings with a gap where the 1850s linking building would be constructed. Ordnance Survey mapping suggests the bay now forming part of 1 Querns Lane may have been separate from the main house from as far back as 1875. The two buildings were formally divided in 2003. The property now also incorporates most of the two easternmost bays of the adjacent warehouse, the remainder of which forms 3 Querns Lane, creating a complex arrangement involving a flying freehold.