Manor Farmhouse With Attached Range Of Outbuildings

Manor Farmhouse with Attached Range of Outbuildings

This Grade I listed building was originally a summer residence of the Abbots of Glastonbury and is now a farmhouse. It dates from the 14th century with alterations made in the 16th century and lesser work in the 19th century.

The main house is built of coursed and squared rubble with stucco applied particularly to the front elevation. It has freestone dressings including quoins and eavesband, slate roofs (that to the west of the front range is hipped with coped verges on kneelers), and ashlar chimney stacks. The stack to the right return is corbelled out from the first floor with a renewed moulded cap. The rear stack projects prominently and is particularly tall, featuring iron banding and a moulded cap.

The building is L-plan with an interior containing a former open hall and many Decorated features. It presents a two-storey front with a 1:1:3 bay arrangement. The windows are primarily 2, 3 and 4-light hollow-moulded stone-mullioned windows with iron casements and leaded lights, except for a chamfered window to the left of the first floor. Evidence remains of a blocked pointed-arch window to the right of the first floor with a relieving arch, and two further relieving arches indicate the positions of former similar windows. Two 2-stage buttresses stand to the right between the windows, with an angle buttress to the right return.

A projecting two-storey porch rises from the second bay from the left. The front faces an ogee gable with coping rising to the apex with a finial in the form of a much weathered stone figure in robes and mitre, postulated to represent Abbot Richard Whiting of Glastonbury. A narrow door opening at ground floor is set in a moulded dressed stone surround with a plank door and strap hinges. The first floor contains a two-light stone-mullioned window with leaded lights.

A wing at right-angles to the rear features several fine large windows. The inside elevation has two windows to the first floor with pointed arches and head tracery of two lights, and two flat-headed two-light windows to the ground floor with cusped lights. The north end elevation conforms to this style, with a taller window on the first floor featuring a transom, and an adjacent two-stage buttress. The west elevation contains a blocked pointed-arch door opening on the first floor. The rear elevation of the main portion displays two large blocked pointed-arch windows.

A contiguous range of outbuildings extends to the west of the frontage, predominantly dating from the 18th and 19th centuries though incorporating remains of medieval fabric. A central obtuse-moulded and pointed stone door opening displays Perpendicular mouldings to the head and jambs with a studded plank door. The walling is of random rubble with a double Roman tile roof, and a further section has pantiles with some dressed quoins. A single-storey section stands adjacent to a two-storey section with a pyramidal roof to the left, which contains two two-light windows. A further two-storey section features two broad segmental-headed archways in dressed stone surrounds, with a hay loft door set above and a plank door beneath. Four further door openings with plank doors are present, three to the left with segmental heads. Further attached outbuildings at the rear are not of special interest.

The interior of the main house contains a great hall on the first floor at the rear with a large fireplace topped by a stone hood. The roof retains remains of crucks set in the wall. A further large fireplace is located on the ground floor, alongside a fireplace with a lintol featuring shields inset in quatrefoils. Several pointed-arch door openings in stone surrounds are present throughout. An early 19th-century staircase exists, along with several further lesser features.