Wigborough Manor House

Wigborough Manor House

Manor house, with part dated 1585 but probably never completed, subsequently modified. The building is constructed in ham stone ashlar with Welsh slate roofs between coped gables and stone chimney stacks. It rises to two and three storeys with attics.

The east entrance elevation has five bays. Bay 1 is a wide gabled projection, while bays 2 and 4 are narrower gables of lesser projection. This arrangement suggests an intended eventual symmetrical plan of E-type, with bay 4 as the centre. The gables have obelisk finials topped with small balls. A cill-height plinth runs across the elevation. Windows have ovolo-mould mullions set in wave-mould recesses: those on the ground floor have 4-lights, with those in bays 1, 2 and 3 being taller and fitted with transomes. First floor windows are 4-light except bay 4, which is 3-light, and above that the arrangement continues to 3-light in the attic level. All windows carry individual labels. The entrance is a cambered-arched doorway with panelled spandrels and a hoodmould, above which sits a square carved panel. A low two-storey wing projects from the north-east corner, with a coped gable and ball finial. This wing has a 4-light mullioned first floor window with label, a 3-light window below, and a square-headed doorway with moulded jambs.

The west elevation also comprises five bays, with bay 5 gabled. Bay 1 features an upper window with hollow-chamfer mullions in a chamfered recess; other windows have ovolo-mould mullions in wave-mould recesses. Bay 1 has 4-lights to the ground floor and 3-light to the second; bay 2 has 7-light windows to first and second floors; bays 3 and 4 have 4-light windows to ground and second floors, with the lower windows being taller and transomed; bay 5 has 4-light to each floor and a 3-light in the attic gable, which bears an obelisk finial. A cambered-arched doorway with boarded door is set in an open stone porch at the lower level of bay 2, likely dating from the later 18th century. This porch has a 4-centred outer arch, spandril panels and flat roof. A chimney sits between bays 3 and 4. A leanto against the north gable has flat coping carried down in steps; its west wall contains a 3-light mullioned and transomed window. High in the main north gable are two single-light second floor windows without labels, and a 3-light attic window with label.

The south elevation has two bays. The first is the gable end of the main wing, with a porch matching the west elevation at ground floor level and 3-light chamfer-mullioned windows to the three levels above. A projecting chimney stack sits between the bays. Bay 2 has ovolo-mould mullioned windows with labels, the lower one fitted with a transome.

Internally, a screen passage links the east and west entrances. The kitchen lies to the north and the hall to the south, with a closed gallery over the passage and a solar to the east. The hall contains a stone cambered-arched fireplace in the west wall and a cambered-arched doorway in the south wall. The east wall of the hall has a 4-centred-arched doorway leading into a former solar, which features a stripwork ceiling, ornamental frieze, a cambered-arched fireplace and panelling, partly adapted. A corbel in this room is dated 1585. The south-east drawing room has a fine strapwork plaster ceiling with a very deep frieze, and a plaster overmantel to the cambered-arched stone fireplace bearing the arms of Hele of Flete. The stair at the south end works around a solid core, similar to nearby Montacute House. On the first floor, a simpler strapwork ceiling adorns the south-east bedroom, which has a cambered-arched doorway and a 19th-century fireplace. The dressing room over the solar has a simpler, less sophisticated strapwork ceiling. Off the staircase at first floor level is a moulded timber-framed doorway. The central bedroom on the west side retains 16th-century panelling matching that in the solar. A minstrels gallery has an early timber window overlooking the hall.

The manor originated as a Saxon estate. Members of the Brome family shared the manor from 1581 to 1615, when it passed to the Hele family, who held it for most of the 17th century. While a superficial date of 1585 seems improbable, a date between 1615 and 1650 appears more likely.