Building record THB 044 - The Old Manor, Prety Road

Grade II-listed timber-framed and rendered house of exceptional historic interest. It consists of two adjoining domestic houses, with an original hall and parlour of the late-15th or early-16th century to the north and second hall and parlour of the early-17th century with a second cross-passage to the rear. Similar arrangements are known elsewhere in the region and are interpreted as ‘unit houses’ for different generations of the same farming families. The earlier building was much altered during its 20th century restorations but retains a fine moulded ceiling that appears to have been inserted into an open hall. The rear wing is more complete, with a number of original windows containing ovolo-moulded mullions, including a particularly fine example to the parlour chamber, and rare external pargeting consisting of foliate friezes with unusual terminals of wyverns and human heads. At much the same time an unusually narrow service wing with two ground-floor rooms that have been combined into the modern kitchen was added to the half-hipped eastern gable of the original parlour, along with a service lean-to against its back wall. The property’s principal historic significance lies in two areas of external pargeting that are now preserved within the extensions. An area of ostensibly late-16th century plaster with part of an elaborate strapwork design and a demi-lune frieze beneath the eaves of the original parlour is exposed inside the lean-to, having been revealed by removing a ceiling in the late-20th century and then unfortunately painted (apart from a small section where the ceiling remains). Complex pargeting of this kind is notoriously rare in original condition. Of still greater interest is the northern gable of the southern wing, which initially overlooked the slope of the northern roof and may have been visible from the green via a curious half-hip to the original parlour’s western gable (in the position of the present central chimney). This gable is decorated with roughcast plaster which retains its original unpainted surface with borders defined by bold lines of red ochre to both the roof and a central window