Wreyland Manor

Wreyland Manor

A house dating from the 16th century with 20th century additions, restored by Cecil Torr in the early 20th century (after 1912). The building is constructed of roughcast stone with a thatched roof. Each gable is topped with a 20th century granite chimney stack designed in 16th century manner. On the ridge, offset to the right, stands an old granite ashlar stack with a 20th century top matching the gable stacks.

The house follows a 3-room and through-passage plan with a long lower end. A 2-storey entrance porch projects from the front, with a rounded stair turret at the rear of the hall, accessed from the through-passage. A rear wing has been added to the left, and a lean-to extension to the right. The main structure is 2 storeys high. The front elevation displays 6 windows with wood casements fitted with leaded panes.

The entrance porch is built of exposed granite rubble with large quoins on the ground storey. The outer doorway is of chamfered granite with an approximately 2-centred head. To the left of this doorway is an old carved date of 1680. Inside the porch are old stone seats on either side, though the upper side-walls have been fitted with 20th century open timberwork. The floor is cobbled with an old granite kerb at the front. The house doorway has a straight-headed chamfered wood frame with worn stops and a chamfered wood lintel above bearing scroll-stops with 2 notches. The plank door is hung on wrought iron strap hinges with fleurs-de-lis terminals, with later applied wooden ribs. The door is inscribed with graffiti, including names and a date of 1779. The upper storey of the porch is timber-framed and jettied on all three sides, with joist ends chamfered and rounded at the front. A 20th century wood ovolo-mullioned window of 3 lights with patterned leaded panes is set in the front wall, with a wooden hood-mould above.

The interior through-passage features a plank and muntin screen to the left, with some studs reset. The studs and head beam are scratch-moulded, with chamfered studs displaying rounded step-stops having 2 notches. To the right is the granite ashlar back of the hall fireplace with a chamfered plinth and a cornice at the top that may have been hacked back. The doorway to the hall has a chamfered wood frame, the right jamb being reset. A winding stone staircase occupies the rear turret, lit by a 2-light wood window with a flat splay mullion, which has been restored. The lower room has been largely remodelled, but retains a chamfered upper floor beam with scroll-stops and wood mullioned windows at the rear, both restored. The hall fireplace has hollow-moulded granite jambs and a chamfered wood lintel, probably a later insertion, with step-stops that do not quite fit the opening. At the rear is an oven with a granite-framed opening and a shallow granite shelf, featuring a domed stone roof and side-walls of large granite pieces. Upper floor beams are chamfered with mutilated stops. The wall at the upper end is of 20th century brick, though just in front of it stands a beam chamfered only on the hall side with a closed truss above it in the second storey, possibly the remains of an internal jetty. The second storey has few distinguishing features except that the rooms are open to the roof over the hall and lower end. The roof beyond the brick wall at the upper end is 20th century.

The roof trusses over the hall are of a primitive jointed cruck type, with the plain foot of each principal rafter tenoned into a vertical wall post. Over the lower end, the foot of the principal rests on the wall-top and is braced by a vertical strut halved on to it. All trusses are fitted with through purlins, some lightly trenched and some simply resting on the backs of the principals; no ridge piece appears to have existed. The collars are cambered with shaped ends halved to the principals, though all are likely restorations. The closed truss mentioned above has a tie-beam but shows no evidence of struts or other framework beyond wattle and daub below it. The doorway to the room over the porch is fitted with a chamfered wood frame bearing scroll-stops with 2 notches.