Wonson Manor

Wonson Manor is a farmhouse and former manor house located in Throwleigh, dating to the mid to late 17th century, though parts may be earlier. The building is constructed of granite stone rubble with dressed granite quoins, and features granite stacks with 19th-century brick tops and a slate roof, probably originally thatch.

The structure is a tall L-shaped building of three storeys. The south-east facing main block appears to follow a four-room plan with two axial stacks, with a two-room plan wing projecting forwards at right angles from the north-eastern end and containing a gable end stack. In the angle between the two wings stands a turret containing the entrance. At the end of the front wing is a two-storey outshot which may date to the 17th or 18th century.

The main block has an irregular three-window front. The ground floor contains a 19th-century tripartite sash with a central twelve-pane sash. On the first floor to the right are two large late 17th-century oak mullion-and-transom windows containing rectangular panes of leaded glass. Alongside to the left is a window that has been enlarged to a doorway with a 20th-century door, accessed by an external stone stair. The remaining windows are 19th and 20th-century casements with glazing bars. The turret front has a mid or late 19th-century six-panel door and contemporary flat-roofed timber porch with moulded entablature and octagonal section posts, with trelliswork infilling on the sides. The main block displays a flat plaster eaves cornice with shallow soffit moulding. The main block roof is gable-ended to the left and hipped to the right, while the front block is gable-ended and the turret roof is hipped. The outshot has a lean-to roof with doorways on each floor containing old plank doors, the upper one accessed by external stone steps.

The outer side of the front wing contains 19th and 20th-century casements with glazing bars, and at the ground floor left end, a 17th-century granite two-light window with chamfered mullion. The rear of the main block is exposed granite rubble, with second floor windows boarded up and others below appearing blocked. A doorway at the right end contains a 17th-century plank door with the remains of applied coverstrip panelling.

The interior was not available for inspection at the time of survey, but is reported to contain high-quality 17th-century craftsmanship, including two carved oak chimneypieces and a staircase with turned balusters. The house appears to have undergone little 20th-century modernisation, suggesting that other 17th-century details such as moulded plaster cornices, panelling, and doors probably survive. Professional advice should be sought before any modernisation or alteration to prevent the destruction of these features. From the exterior, this appears to be a well-preserved mid to late 17th-century house built to a level of sophistication unusual for the Dartmoor area.