Manor Farm House and Manor Farm Cottage

Manor Farm House and Manor Farm Cottage

This small gentry house dates from 1678, with a date stone bearing the initials C L I. It was divided into a house and cottage in 1718.

The building is constructed mainly of rubble limestone, including some sandstone and other stone rubble, laid roughly to courses. Finely dressed sandstone is used for window and door surrounds, and for the chimney stacks. The roof is covered with sandstone slate, laid to diminishing courses and finished with a stone ridge.

The original house formed a linear range of three cells, with a central, heated parlour or house body containing a high status chamber above, probably originally open to the ornamented roof structure. A separate cottage was subsequently formed from the northernmost cell, which was expanded with a two-storey addition to the west.

The east elevation, which is now the front, was originally the rear. It is roughly quoined and comprises two storeys and three bays, with the southern two bays forming Manor Farm House and the northernmost bay forming Manor Farm Cottage.

Manor Farm House is outlined by ashlar end stacks. It has a roughly central door set in a tall, straight-chamfered surround of fine-grained sandstone. The door dates from the 20th century and retains an earlier rectangular overlight with margin glazing. The windows have similar surrounds, possibly 19th-century replacements of 18th-century openings, with small-paned horned sashes. To the first floor, slightly off-set above the door, there is evidence of a blocked, smaller window, probably a chamfered-mullioned window.

Manor Farm Cottage has a lower front door set in a simpler sandstone surround with square cut monolithic jambs and lintel, positioned in line with the northern chimney stack serving Manor Farm House. To its right is a higher set, three-light, hollow-chamfered-mullioned window considered to be 17th century. Its later joinery includes a vertical sash to the central light, with the flanking lights being fixed and each divided into eight small panes. To the first floor above is a slightly taller, two-light mullioned window in slightly different sandstone, with straight rather than hollow-chamfered detailing, suggesting this is an early 18th-century insertion. Just to its left is a smaller, single-light window that is blocked. The cottage's large chimney stack projects from the north gable.

The west elevation was the original front. The northernmost bay is now obscured by the projecting wing forming part of Manor Farm Cottage, whilst the ground floor of the southernmost bay is obscured by a late 19th-century single-storey extension to Manor Farm House.

The central bay features a 17th-century five-light mullioned window to the ground floor, set in a straight-chamfered surround beneath a simple hood-mould. The mullions are hollow-chamfered with an additional step-moulding. The southernmost light is blocked; the rest retain later joinery with each light divided into two panes. To the south of this window is a quoined doorway with moulded arrises and an ornate head inscribed C L I 1678. To the north is evidence of an inserted but subsequently blocked doorway, originally serving the cottage, with a small window with a stone frame now formed in the blocking. Above on the first floor is a small, blocked window, with a slightly larger window with a rounded head just to the south, which is straight-chamfered. Slightly further south is a three-light mullioned window with hollow-chamfers; a similar window appears in the southern bay, partially obscured by the extension ridge. All of these windows are considered to be 17th century in their stonework.

The extension to the cottage is a single bay of two low storeys, its ridgeline at eaves height to the rest of the building. It is quoined with a blind gable end and a chimney stack partly corbelled out from just below eaves height, now truncated to roof-line. A doorway is set in the north wall, and the south wall has three-light hollow-chamfered windows to both floors, detailed like those of the first floor of the house.

The single-storey late 19th-century extension to the house is a single bay, quoined with a tall end stack flanked by large windows set in slightly projecting stone frames. The north wall has a similarly framed doorway and smaller window, with a further window to the south wall.

Interior

Manor Farm House

The north wall of the northern ground floor room, the central room of the pre-divided house, contains a very large 17th-century fireplace flanked by arched openings. The fireplace has a moulded arris and is arched with 19 voussoirs springing from the monolithic heads of the flanking openings. Set in the back of the fireplace opening is a smaller, modern fireplace, with a timber-lined salt box to the west and a stone-lined opening for a bread oven to the east, now blocked. The flanking arched openings are now recesses but were originally doorways through to what is now the cottage to the north. Two exposed ceiling beams are chamfered, mainly painted black with white chamfers decorated with a 17th-century tendril-pattern in black. The southern room has boxed-in ceiling beams, late 18th- or early 19th-century coving, and a 20th-century replacement fireplace.

One of the doors on the first floor is 17th century with four panels, the upper two panels being slightly arched, hung on forged strap hinges. One of the rooms (bathroom) retains a small, late 18th-century hob grate.

The attic is divided into two roof-spaces by a masonry wall. Each roof-space retains a 17th-century oak principal truss featuring a large king block that extends downwards as an ornamented pendant with slightly arched braces springing upwards to the principal rafters and ridge purlin. These trusses are very carefully and precisely worked, retaining faint marking-out lines and obvious assembly marks. Dendrochronology suggests some timbers were reused, probably from one or more 16th-century structures. The common rafters and most purlins are later softwood replacements.

Manor Farm Cottage

The eastern ground floor room retains two ceiling beams that are noticeably off-centre, suggesting this room was originally divided into two. The bedroom in the western extension retains two small but relatively high-status early 18th-century stone fireplaces with monolithic lintels.