The Old Manor Guesthouse

The Old Manor Guesthouse is a manor house, now operating as a hotel, dating from the mid-to-late 15th century, with subsequent alterations in the late 19th century and the mid-to-late 20th century. Built primarily of red sandstone and blue lias rubble, some dressed stone is visible in the porch, and the roof is tiled with Roman tiles, with a coped verge on the left side and double Roman tiles elsewhere. A stone stack is located on the left gable end, brick on the ridge of the right cross wing, and a lateral stack is at the rear of the hall, now masked by later additions.

The original layout consisted of an open hall with a solar above and a service wing, accompanied by a wing to the left. This was expanded soon after with a right cross wing and a porch with a chapel situated in the angle of the hall and left cross wing. The house was further altered at the rear. The two-and-a-half-story facade is arranged in a 1:1:2:1 bay arrangement, with a gabled outer bay to the left, a cross wing to the right, and a full-height gabled porch in the second bay from the left. Diagonal buttresses support the first floor, and a Perpendicular two-light window is present on the first floor. A trefoil-headed lancet window illuminates the right return. The entrance features a moulded Tudor arch with a hood mould and arched terminals, leading to a half-glazed double door. An early 19th-century casement dormer with gabled tops is visible on the hall gable, with a similar window on the right gable end. Ground-floor 20th-century metal casements include a three-light window to the left, a four-light window to the hall, and a three-light window to the right gable end, with a stable-type door beyond. The inner door of the porch is a chamfered four-centred arch with a 19th-century half-glazed folding door.

Inside the solar wing, you’ll find five pairs of arch-braced trusses with shields resting on corbels and two tiers of wing braces. One end truss is built into the east wall, and the west wall was rebuilt. The hall has a similar roof with a jointed cruck truss that reveals the location of a 19th-century stair. The north wing’s roof is said to contain cruck trusses. The ground floor front room features steeply chamfered beams with pyramid stops. A fine wagon roof with moulded ribs and bosses is found in the chapel above the porch, alongside a blocked opening on the south wall, believed to be a former staircase. Other features comprise a crocketed niche, which might be a piscina or aumbrey, and three symmetrically placed brackets for statues below the east window. A late 19th-century addition to the top-lit hall contains three sets of rooms opening off.

Adjacent to the south side is a barn with three damaged jointed cruck trusses. An opening at first-floor level in the chimney breast is thought to be access to a drying chamber. Blocked windows are evident on the south wall, though the barn has largely been rebuilt.