Building record BAC 052 - Bacton Manor

Bacton Manor is one of the best preserved early-Georgian country houses in East Anglia. Listed at grade II* as ‘Manor House Christian Rest Home’ (and formerly as ‘Manor House Farm’) there is some confusion over the structure’s precise date: Pevsner gives it as ‘about 1715-20’, noting the presence of an overmantel painting of Furness Abbey in Cumbria dated 1720, while the Schedule of Listed Buildings states that it was built in ‘circa 1720-30 for George Pretyman (died 1732)’. The manor was rebuilt on it’s present site in the five yearsbefore 1732. The original site of the manor is reputed to be at Bacton Hall, which is listed as a 16th century former manor house 2.5 km to the south-west. The front range of the house remains largely original, although there is evidence of alteration in the blind rear wall which represents an early extension of 0.8 m (32 ins), apparently enclosing the original external chimneys. The windows were replaced as part of a major phase of refurbishment at the end of the 19th century, which included the construction of the present rear wing on the site of the old. A cellar at the southern end of this structure appears to have survived from its predecessor, with Georgian brickwork and arched storage recesses, but its roll-moulded ceiling joists were re-used from a mid-16th century building. Significant sections of the ostensibly original panelling were renewed at the same time, and a new suite of re-used 17th century panelling was installed in the right-hand bed chamber on the first floor. There is also evidence of much earlier internal remodelling. the present staircase is consistent with a date of 1730 or 1740, but appears not to fit the fabric as it interrupts the butt-purlin roof structure and the finished plaster of an earlier wall can be seen from the cupboard beneath. This wall contains substantial timber-framing with infill of wattle-and-daub, and, in conjunction with the
chamfered and stopped axial joist of the eastern room, raises the possibility that parts of a 17th century structure lie hidden within the fabric. The most recent phase of refurbishment occurred in 1983 when many of the principal Georgian rooms were dramatically subdivided as part of the property’s conversion into a nursing home for the elderly. A number of singlestoried extensions were built to the rear as part of the same process (S1).