Manor Farm House and Manor Farm Cottage, Langcliffe, North Yorkshire

Summary

A small C17 gentry house influenced by the local vernacular housing more typical of yeomen farmers. The house was subdivided into a house and cottage in 1718.

Description

Small gentry house with a 1678 date stone, divided into a house and cottage in 1718.

MATERIALS: mainly rubble limestone (including some sandstone and other stone rubble) laid roughly to courses. Finely dressed sandstone used for window and door surrounds, and chimney stacks. Sandstone slate roof, laid to diminishing courses, finished with a stone ridge.

PLAN: the original house was a linear range of three cells with a central, heated parlour or house body with a high status chamber above probably originally open to the ornamented roof structure. A separate cottage was subsequently formed from the northernmost cell which was expanded with a two-storey addition to the west.

EXTERIOR:
East: the current front elevation, originally the rear. This is roughly quoined and is of two storeys and three bays, the southern two bays forming Manor Farm House, the northernmost bay Manor Farm Cottage.

Manor Farm House is outlined by ashlar end stacks. It has a roughly central door set in a tall, straight-chamfered surround of fine-grained sandstone. The door is C20 with an earlier rectangular overlight with margin glazing. Windows have similar surrounds, possibly C19 replacements in C18 openings, and have small-paned horned sashes. To the first floor, slightly off-set above the door, there is evidence of a blocked, smaller window, probably a chamfered-mullioned window.

Manor Farm Cottage has a lower front door set in a simpler sandstone surround of square cut monolithic jambs and lintel, the door being in line with the northern chimney stack serving Manor Farm House. To its right is a higher set, three-light, hollow-chamfered-mullioned window that is considered to be C17. Its later joinery includes a vertical sash to the central light, the flanking lights being fixed, each divided into eight small panes. To the first floor above there is a slightly taller, two-light mullioned window in a slightly different sandstone, the window also being straight rather than hollow-chamfered which suggests that this window is an early C18 insertion. Just to its left there is a smaller, single-light window that is blocked. The cottage’s large chimney stack projects from the north gable.

West: this was the original front elevation, the northernmost bay now being obscured by the projecting wing that forms part of Manor Farm Cottage, the ground floor of the southernmost bay being obscured by the late C19 single storey extension to Manor Farm House.

The central bay has a C17 five-light mullioned window to the ground floor that is set in a straight-chamfered surround beneath a simple hood-mould. The mullions are hollow-chamfered and feature an additional step-moulding. The southern-most light is blocked, the rest retain later joinery, each light being divided into two panes. To the south of the window is a quoined doorway with moulded arrises and an ornate head that is inscribed C L I 1678. To the north of the window is evidence of an inserted but subsequently blocked doorway, originally to the cottage, a small window with a stone frame now formed in the blocking. Above, on the first floor, there is a small, blocked window, with a slightly larger window with a rounded head just to the south, this being straight chamfered. Slightly further south there is a three-light mullioned window with hollow-chamfers, a similar window being set in the southern bay, partially obscured by the ridge of the extension, the stonework of all of these windows considered to be C17.

The extension to the cottage is a single bay and of two low storeys, its ridgeline being at eaves height to the rest of the building. It is quoined and has a blind gable end with a chimney stack partly corbelled out from just below eaves height, this stack now truncated to the roof-line. There is a doorway to the north wall and the south wall has a three-light hollow-chamfered window to both floors, these windows being detailed like those to the first floor of the house.

The single-storey late C19 extension to the house is also of a single bay and is quoined. It has a tall end stack flanked by large windows set in slightly projecting stone frames. The north wall has a similarly framed doorway and smaller window, with a further window to the south wall.

INTERIOR:
Manor Farm House:
The north wall of the northern ground floor room (the central room of the pre-divided house) is taken up by a very large C17 fireplace flanked by arched openings. The fireplace has a moulded arris and is arched with 19 voussoirs that spring from the monolithic heads of the flanking openings. Set in the back of the fireplace opening there is a smaller, modern fireplace, with a timber-lined salt box to the west and the stone lined opening for a bread oven to the east that is now blocked. The flanking arched openings are now recesses, but were originally doorways through to what is now the cottage to the north. There are two exposed ceiling beams that are chamfered. These beams are mainly painted black, with the chamfers being white with a C17 tendril-pattern in black. The southern room has boxed-in ceiling beams, late C18 or early C19 coving and a C20 replacement fireplace.

One of the doors on the first floor is C17 with four panels, the upper two panels being slightly arched, the door being hung on forged strap hinges. One of the rooms (bathroom) retains a small, late C18 hob grate.

The attic is divided into two roof-spaces by a masonry wall. Each roof-space retains a C17 oak principal truss that features a large king block that extends downwards as an ornamented pendant with slightly arched braces springing upwards from this pendant to the principal rafters and the ridge purlin. These trusses are very carefully and precisely worked, retaining faint marking-out lines in addition to more obvious assembly marks. Dendrochronology suggests that some of the timbers were reused, probably from one or more structures dating to the C16. The common rafters and most of the purlins are later softwood replacements.

Manor Farm Cottage:
The eastern ground floor room retains two ceiling beams that are noticeably off-centre suggesting that this room was originally divided into two. The bedroom in the western extension retains two small, but relatively high status early C18 stone fireplaces with monolithic lintels.

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 31 January 2023 to amend a typo in the description

History

Manor Farm House and Manor Farm Cottage originally formed a single house, only being named as Manor Farm since 1920. It is thought to have been built, or perhaps extensively altered, in 1678 for Leonard and Isabel Carr. The Carr family was one of a group of local families who had purchased the manor of Langcliffe in 1591, dividing up the manor to become individual freeholders. Leonard was elder son to the merchant, William Carr, whose will of February 1673 mentions the ownership of a mill and that he had connections with the Company of Merchant Adventurers in Newcastle upon Tyne. Leonard and his father were thus clearly part of the emerging middle classes: yeomen farmers who had become gentlemen. Leonard died in 1696 and the resulting probate inventory provides an insight into the house at that time indicating that the house had a main room ('body of the house'), kitchen, parlour and a high status chamber (the 'redchamber') all as separate rooms in addition to five other chambers and three service rooms.

The house includes some high quality detailing indicating a gentry-status, yet the overall design and layout of the original house is very conservative for 1678.This could indicate earlier origins of the house, the 1678 date stone perhaps dating major alterations, or it might reflect the particular attitude of the family, harking back to their yeomen origins. The high quality of the fireplace heating the central room suggests that this may have originally been a heated parlour rather than a typical house body (a multifunctional room typical of vernacular houses of this period). The high quality ornamented roof structure now concealed in the attic was presumably originally displayed as part of two high-status first-floor chambers that were open to the roof, perhaps including the redchamber of the 1698 inventory. Dendrochronological analysis of the roof structure suggests that it is contemporary with the 1678 datestone, but included some reused timbers from earlier buildings dating to the C16.

As with most C17 vernacular buildings, the house has evolved over time. An indenture dated 22 April 1718 records the division of the north end of the house to create a cottage for the use of Grace Carr, wife of William, Leonard Carr’s nephew. This may also date the western extension to the cottage with the C17 style windows being reset from the original west elevation, although the number of rooms noted in the inventory suggests that it was added before 1698. However the early C18 creation of the cottage is thought to have resulted in the addition of the large chimney stack projecting from the northern gable, the conversion of two former service rooms, which occupied the northern-most bay of the original house, into an enlarged kitchen and the creation of a new entrance in the west wall (this now reduced to a window). The two good quality early C18 stone fireplaces on the first floor of the cottage were probably also part of this reconfiguration.

The house and cottage originally faced west, the east elevation becoming the front of the property probably in the late C18 when the cottage’s current front door was inserted and the windows of the house were enlarged for vertical sashes. The stone surround to the house’s current front door appears to be C19, probably a replacement for earlier stone jambs rather than indicating a new insertion. The stone surrounds to the sash windows were probably replaced at the same time as although the window proportions are C18, the stone surrounds appear later. The single storey wing projecting from the southern bay of the west elevation was added in the late C19, being shown on the 1892 Ordnance Survey map, but not on the mid-C19 tithe map. The exterior stonework of the building retains evidence of various other alterations such as blocked windows and areas of possible rebuilding, with changes in the stonework to the west elevation even hinting that the building was originally single storey.

Reasons for Listing

Manor Farm House and Manor Farm Cottage, Langcliffe is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* as an example of a small C17 gentry house influenced by the local vernacular housing more typical of yeomen farmers;
* for the rare survival of a suite of good quality C17 features including the substantial main fireplace, the painted decoration to ceiling beams and the ornamented roof trusses;
* the way that the building retains evidence of its evolution through the C18 and C19.

Historic interest:

* for the survival of C17 and C18 documents that directly relate to the building.

External Links

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