Manor Farmhouse and Welsh Archery Centre

Manor Farmhouse and Welsh Archery Centre

This Grade II* listed building comprises a late medieval house with a later main front range, built of thin coursed rubble stone with modern render applied to the main house front, gables, and the gable of the cross-wing behind. All roofs are pantiled with red brick upper sections to the chimneys. The structure incorporates the main front range with a parallel cross-wing of medieval origin positioned behind it. The medieval hall block now functions as the Welsh Archery Centre shop.

The main house range is of two storeys and garret, with three bays across the front. Probably late 19th-century timber windows with four lights and transom have replaced the original 17th-century windows. A modern porch occupies the centre, with a modern two-light cross-framed casement above it. The steeply pitched roof has end stacks, the one to the right being original with a weathered top. A garret window sits in the gable. A 19th-century single-storey kitchen extension extends from the far gable. The rear elevation of this block contains an introduced two-light casement and a blocked stair window with damaged dripmould.

The medieval house proper is of a single storey over a basement, while the cross-wing rises to two storeys. The elevation facing the road has the wing positioned to the right. This wing displays two over two modern hardwood casements set in an otherwise blank rendered wall. Historical illustrations of its 19th-century state reveal the left jamb of a medieval window to the left of the present upper windows, and a four-light 17th-century window on the first floor that was half-blocked. These medieval and 17th-century features likely survive beneath the modern render.

To the left, the hall wing contains three openings to the undercroft, all altered. These include a 15th-century almost segmental-headed doorway accessed by a flight of steps and, to the right, a two-light 15th-century window. The upper floor features a late 16th-century four-light mullion and transom window with its outer lights bricked up, presumably in the 18th century when the building was downgraded. The mullions are stop-chamfered and incorporate a double-thickness central mullion and transom, with dripmould above. This window is repeated on the rear wall but is wholly blocked there. A 15th-century doorway opens to the screens passage; to its left stands a projection that was constructed to contain the staircase to upper floors now demolished. Only the ground floor survives, which contains a modern four-light mullion and transom timber window beneath a concrete lintel and is covered by a low-pitched slate roof. To the right of this door is a partially altered original entrance to the undercroft and kitchen. The gable wall displays another partly bricked-up four-light window similar to that on the entrance front, and to its left a blocked doorway with an arched head of uncertain purpose. At ground level is the open bottom of a vertical shaft beneath a massive lintel, presumably a garderobe shaft.

The interior of the main house was not available for inspection at the time of resurvey and is probably extensively altered. The hall, now occupied by the Welsh Archery Centre, is open to the roof above a replacement timber floor and retains the remains of a 16th-century fireplace, although the top of the stack was removed when the building was re-roofed. The roof is supported by four plain king post trusses. The undercroft was not inspected.