Baxby Manor

Baxby Manor

Farmhouse dating from around 1300, consisting of a three-bay range with a cross-wing added around 1600 to the right, encased in stone during the 18th century. The building is timber-framed with a rear aisle encased in brown sandstone, irregularly coursed, and has pantile roofs.

The single-storey hall was later made into two floors. The front (south elevation) features, to the right of the main range, a door to the cross passage comprising six fielded panels (two glazed), attached to an oak board door with wooden bolt and locks. Ground-floor windows from the left include a sash window with glazing bars and 16-pane sash windows, both with flat arches. The first-floor has 16-pane windows. A fire-mark appears at eaves level, with brick stacks at the left end and to the left of the door. The gabled end of the cross-wing projects forward to the right, with 16-pane sash windows on each floor featuring exposed sash boxes and flat arches, and a finial to the apex of the gable.

The rear elevation of the main range shows, from the left, a two-panel door to the cross passage attached to an old board door with wooden bolt and locks, an X-end to tie, and a vertical panel of cemented brickwork covering a cruck blade. A side-sliding sash window has "DAIRY" inscribed on the lintel. A timber porch covers a two-panel door. The eaves are lower at the rear over the aisle, with no first-floor windows. The gabled end of the cross-wing projects forward to the left with a side-sliding sash ground-floor window and corbelled offset stonework.

The right return (rear) of the wing has side-sliding sash windows on each floor with a flat arch on the ground floor. The left return of the main range features a first-floor two-light window and blocked pitching door, both with flat arches. The right return of the cross-wing contains, in its centre, a single-storey pent-roofed outhouse concealing a large circular bread oven. Towards the rear are a ground-floor 16-pane sash window with timber lintel and a first-floor side-sliding sash window, plus a first-floor blocked three-light mullion window. The roof shows two builds with a central change of levels and a large brick stack at the junction, with a brick end stack to the rear.

Interior

The interior preserves many sections of timber-framing, including on the ground floor the framing of the main range east end wall and the separately-framed cross-wing beside it. On the first floor, the base-cruck blade in the rear wall between the right-hand bays features a roll-moulded arch brace. The roof is particularly fine, comprising three crown-post trusses. The central two have crown-posts straight-braced to tie-beams, collar purlins and collars, with tie-beams braced to rafters and collar. Other trusses are straight-braced, collared rafter trusses.

In the cross-passage, behind the modern staircase, stands an octagonal spere chamfered with bar stops, running at the top into one, and possibly two, pointed doorways. To the right, in the centre of the cross-wing, the former kitchen has a large fireplace with timber bressummer and, projecting outside, the vast bread oven. Mortices in the beam indicate a former partition towards the rear. To the left of the cross passage, the hall, now floored and divided into three ground-floor rooms, has a main dining room with huge fireplaces with progressively-smaller smoke-hoods inserted within the main one. The main bressummer features an oblique joint above a brick post, and very large chamfered lateral beams flank the brick floor arranged in parquet plan. On the first floor, 17th-century panelling crosses the aisle in the cross-passage bay, and in the cross-wing, the borrowed light to the modern bathroom retains old glass in lead cames.