Manor Farmhouse, Manor Farm, Beighton, Beighton, Sheffield

Summary

Farmhouse, now a house, early C18, with mid-C19 and late-C20 alterations.

Description

Farmhouse, now a house, built early C18, with mid-C19 and late-C20 alterations.

MATERIALS: coursed squared sandstone, ashlar dressings, hipped and gabled Welsh slate roofs.

PLAN: the C18 house has an L-plan, with a mid-C19 extension.

EXTERIOR: a five-bay, two-storey, restrained Queen Anne-style house. The main (north) elevation is raised on an ashlar plinth, with quoined corners in relief. It has a central glazed ten-panelled front door, set in a moulded and painted stone door case, with a segmental pediment and a plain frieze displaying a rose and the monogram S P, believed to represent Simon Pirrepoint (Simon de Perropoynt). The ground floor of the main elevation is lit by four 12-pane timber casement windows, with the appearance of semi-exposed sash box windows, with painted stone sills and moulded ashlar surrounds. The windows are set beneath an ashlar string course, which wraps around onto the western gable elevation. The eastern gable has been rendered and painted, and a secondary garden wall with a side gateway has been built up against it. The house has a hipped Welsh slate roof, with a central stone stack, modern skylights, and is drained by timber gutters on wrought-iron brackets mounted beneath a moulded ashlar eaves course, served by a mixture of cast-iron and plastic down pipes.

A two-storey rear range has quoined corners and a mixture of C20 windows types in all elevations. A modern uPVC glazed door in the west elevation gives access to the interior; it is flanked by a semi-sunken, single-storey lean-to larder, with a curved corner and graduated stone slate roof. The rear range has been extended by a slightly lower, two-storey, one-bay, gable-roofed C19 extension, built against the south gable. The west wall of the extension is blind, the east has a modern uPVC French door, and there are two small sash windows in the end gable. The slate-clad roof over both the extension and the rear range has an unequal pitch and a brick chimney stack straddles both ridges against the gable of the rear range.

A two-storey mid-C19 west extension, with a slate-clad gable roof, is also built against the west gable wall of the main body of the house. The ground-floor of the north elevation is lit by one eight-pane and two 12-pane top-hung sash windows in plain ashlar surrounds, while the first-floor is lit by a 12-pane sash window that has a stone sill and a moulded ashlar surround, with a projecting keystone. The south-elevation has a projecting two-storey porch entered by a modern glazed door beneath an ogee lintel. All window openings have C20 sash or casement windows, with ashlar stone lintels and painted stone sills. The roof is clad in Welsh slate and has moulded ashlar kneelers, with a central stone chimney stack rising from the east gable. The large modern single-storey extensions, built against the gable walls of the rear range and the mid-C19 extension, are not of interest and are excluded from the listing.

INTERIOR: the interior of the house has been largely re-worked with modern Georgian-style decorative plaster work and timber fittings and fixtures; nevertheless, the house retains most of its original structural walls and room positions. The house is entered by a short passageway from the front door, leading to a transverse hallway, which spans the full width of the house against the inner face of the rear wall; it provides access to all ground-floor rooms. The northern ground-floor reception room retains its panelled timber window shutters. The rear door from the two-storey porch is situated towards the western end of the hallway and a door in the west wall gives access to a sitting room in the mid-C19 extension; a door to one side of the chimney breast in the west wall of the sitting room is reached by four steps, that leads into a modern extension (the modern extension is excluded from the listing). The rear range houses a modern kitchen/diner and a former scullery with modern kitchen fittings, a doorway in the northern wall of the kitchen gives access to a flight of well-worn stone steps, leading down to the larder and the cellar. Both the larder and the cellar retain original stone slab shelves. The cellar has a number of blocked windows, including a blocked mullion window in the east wall, and it has a segmental stone arch in the south wall.

The first-floor is reached by a dog-leg stair with winders, situated at the eastern end of the hallway; it has been largely reconstructed, but it retains original panelled newel posts and moulded hand-rails. The first-floor landing traverses the length of the house, giving access to two bedrooms in the main body of the house and two over the rear range. A door in the west wall of the landing leads into a bedroom within the mid-C19 extension, and a further doorway in the southern wall gives access to a small bathroom with a lower-floor level within the two-storey porch. The principal (eastern) bedroom on the northern side of the landing retains its window seats. A door immediately adjacent to the principal bedroom leads to a single flight attic staircase with a late-C19-style balustrade built against a chimney stack that rises up the centre of the house. The soffit of the slope of the attic roof is plastered, with some exposed timber trusses, cut with an adze to receive a plaster coating. The attic has an L-plan, with a secondary partition wall forming a north-east bedroom, accessed by a small doorway to one side of the central stack, an open space that acts as spare accommodation, a bathroom with modern fittings over the mid-C19 extension, and a small room within the roof space over the rear range. Not all of the timbers exposed in the attic are real, some are false and made of plastic wood. The roof structure is largely obscured; however, some sections of the main roof structure are visible within the eaves spaces, comprising a mixture of both historic and modern timbers. The mid-C19 extension has a king post truss roof.

History

Beighton village is an ancient village that was recorded as Bectun in the Domesday Book of 1086. In medieval times, the village stood within the Manor of Beighton and the manor house was the location of the manorial court. The current Manor Farmhouse was built in about 1700, together with a range of farm buildings to the east. Additional farm buildings were added during the early C19 forming a courtyard arrangement, with a horse driven engine house attached to the northern range. During the mid-C19, the house was extended to the west. By the late C19 the Manor Farm belonged to the Right Honourable, The Earl Manvers. It came up for sale in October 1912, when it was recorded that it comprised 172 acres 1 rood 28 perches of land, with a tithe value of £7 19s 10d. During the late C19 and early C20, the village's rural economy changed to one based on mining and iron working. Streets of miner’s housing were built on the northern side of the village and along School Road, together with Beighton Board School, gradually encroaching upon Manor Farm. The village continued to grow throughout the C20, becoming a dormitory town for Sheffield and by the late C20, large volumes of housing had been built on the land to the south of Manor Farm. This expansion continued into the C21, with high-density housing erected at Broomwood Gardens, and Manor Farm Court, encroaching tight up against the eastern boundary of Manor Farmhouse and enclosing the remaining barn of the former farmstead, which has been converted into three dwellings.

From 1977 a series of single-storey extensions to the south of the farmhouse were built, comprising games rooms, a swimming pool and changing rooms and, in 1984, a pair of large double garages. The house subsequently fell into disrepair, when it was subject to vandalism and architectural theft, and the repair of the house has entailed the removal and replacement of some damaged internal fittings and fixtures, and the windows to the front elevation.

Reasons for Listing

Manor Farmhouse, of early C18 date with later C19 and C20 alterations, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* as an early-C18 dwelling, it falls well within the date range when there is a presumption in favour of listing;

* a substantial detached higher status vernacular house, whose scale, composition and quality of materials is of a good standard, and it compares well with other Grade II-listed dwellings of a similar date;

* it retains a number of significant architectural features including the retention of the C18 front elevation, the semi-sunken pantry, and the cellar with blocked mullion windows;

* the plan form of the principal rooms and the axial corridors is largely retained and readable.

Historic interest:

* the blocked mullion windows and the segmental arch in the cellar suggests the survival of fabric pre-dating the present C18 structure.

External Links

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