Little Manor (Formerly The Small House)

Little Manor, formerly known as The Small House, is an Arts and Crafts house designed by the prominent architect E S Prior and completed in 1912 for Mr Peyton Mackeson, a past Mayor of Chichester. The house was built on land owned by the Goodwood estate. Prior (1852-1932) was articled to R Norman Shaw in 1874 and became a founder member and Master of the Art Worker's Guild in 1906, as well as Secretary of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society from 1902 to 1917. He was particularly noted for his X-shaped or "butterfly plan" houses, including The Barn at Exmouth and Voewood at Holt in Norfolk. Little Manor was his penultimate house commission.

The building is constructed of local knapped flint with a brown brick plinth in Sussex bond and red brick dressings. It has a hipped tiled roof and four tall diagonally-placed red brick chimneystacks. The first floor is constructed of fire-resistant pre-cast concrete. The house is one storey with attics, rising to two storeys on its south-west side, with mainly irregular fenestration throughout. Windows are wooden mullioned or mullioned and transomed casements.

The plan consists of an entrance front to the north-east with principal rooms facing south-west and a service wing to the north-west forming an L-wing. The ground floor comprises a north-eastern corridor with three rooms opening off to the south-west: originally a Study, Sitting Room, and Dining Room. The Sitting Room was designed to spread across all three bays of the garden front, flanked by recessed Study and Dining Room behind two loggias. Sleeping balconies occupied the first floor above these loggias, originally designed with Venetian blinds for privacy. The upper floor was designed with dressing rooms behind the sleeping platforms, three bedrooms, and two servants' bedrooms to the rear.

The north-east or entrance front is asymmetrical and L-shaped. To the east is a projecting flint porch with brick bands and dressings, featuring a small diamond-shaped window and round-headed brick arch below with a studded plank door and curved recess. To the left, the roof slopes to the ground floor with a single-light casement. To the right is a four-light dormer and the ground floor has three round-headed arches containing one two-light and two four-light casements. The north-west service wing has a four-light dormer and tall kitchen casement flanked by smaller windows originally serving the store, china, and larder. The south-east elevation features a flat-roofed dormer, a three-light casement to the first floor, and a round-headed brick arch with keystone to the ground floor containing a three-light mullioned and transomed casement and a two-light casement to the right. The south-west or garden front is of three bays with cambered-headed four-light casements to the first floor set in cambered brick arches. The ground floor has flat-arched three-light mullioned and transomed casements set within round-headed arches with keystones. On each end, the first floor rooms have square sleeping platforms with wooden balustrading with chamfered wooden piers, supported on circular brick columns with square stone capitals and half-columns to the sides. The western balcony has a two-light window and door to the upper level and two French windows with rectangular fanlights below. The eastern balcony retains the wooden balustrading but both levels have been enclosed in the late 20th century, the first floor in tilework and the lower level in brickwork, reusing an original French window and casement window. The north-west elevation has a partially projecting tall chimneystack with bands of red and brown brick to the lower part, three dormer windows to the first floor (the central one hipped, the end ones flat-roofed), and three windows and two plank doors to the ground floor. The north-eastern front to the service wing has a recessed centre to the former scullery and three small casement windows and two plank doors, formerly leading to the wood and coal stores. The former stable and garage wing has been altered and is not of special interest.

The interior of the ground floor main house contains a north-eastern corridor with a black and white stone quarry chequerwork floor thought to have been reclaimed from elsewhere. A series of original six-panelled oak doors and an angled door to the west with cambered fanlight lead to the service end. To the east is a closed string dogleg staircase with square fretwork pattern to the balustrade and square newel posts with carved finials. The Sitting Room, also known as the Oak Room, has a solid oak ceiling with axial beams, square floor joists, boarding, and flat cornice. The eastern end has a wooden fireplace with a panel of carved shells, paterae, pilasters, and green marble interior, which is probably not original. The eastern third of the Oak Room has been partitioned in the late 20th century to form an additional room. The service end retains the servants' bells and winder service staircase.