Building record 1417100000 - Manor Cottage, Mill Lane

Grade II. Pair of estate cottages, now a single house, built probably in 1908 for the estate carpenter and head gardener of Westbury Manor by Lord and Lady Scott who owned the estate from the early 1890s to 1930s.
MATERIALS: graded coursed ironstone (possibly Hexton stone), limestone dressings, hipped slate roofs.
PLAN: it was built as a pair of one-and-a-half storey, two-bay symmetrical cottages under a single hipped roof with a single central cruciform stack. Each was originally of two main ground floor rooms with stairs in the outer bay behind an entrance porch on the south front. The party wall has been mostly removed. Attached to east and west are narrower single-storey wings set back from the garden front and flush with the north elevation, and under half-hipped roofs. The later C20 extensions to the east are not of special interest.
EXTERIOR: The principal elevation faces south over the garden towards the former Westbury Manor (now Beachborough School). The outer bays each have a stone porch, open on two sides with moulded limestone arches and an offset battered angle buttress with a carved ogee moulding; above is a crisply moulded drip mould. Porches have stone-flagged floors. Doors and windows are in flush chamfered openings. Porch doorways have part-glazed doors with lower vertical boarded panels. The inner bays of the south elevation have gables with tall kneelers, each with a three-light chamfered mullion window in flush, chamfered openings, and with single-pane metal-framed casements, and are set over similar ground floor windows. The profile of the eaves and gables echoes that of the porches and drip moulds. The west and east faces have paired casements under a gable which also has tall kneelers which give height to the gable. The north elevation has similar windows including a pair of casements under a single central gable. Eaves have exposed shaped rafter feet; metal rainwater goods.
Added or altered porches and entrances (allowing wheelchair access) lead into the single storey wings and are not of special interest. The single storey wings are half-hipped. That to the east has been extended and altered and is no longer of special interest. That to the west has replaced windows and doors.
INTERIOR: The party walls have been removed to create a single house. Stairs with turned newels and stick balusters remain at each end of the building. The south facing rooms have been opened up to form one space which has a replaced fireplace. A pair of corner fireplaces set at an angle remain in the former north-facing rooms. Each has plain surround tall openings with glazed brick linings and a metal grate. Doors of four panels remain throughout the house. The inner face of the western single-storey wing is brick faced. On the first floor an internal corridor links the two stair wells cutting into rooms, some of which have been reduced in size.
SUBSIDIARY ITEMS: The house sits on a stone-flagged terrace with engineering brick steps overlooking the garden.
HISTORY: Manor Cottage was built, probably in 1908, as a pair of estate cottages for the head gardener and carpenter by Lord and Lady Scott of Westbury Manor. The kitchen gardens lay to the east of the cottage and has been redeveloped as Manor Gardens. The stone east boundary wall to the cottages remains, with a bricked up gateway.
Lord and Lady Scott owned the estate from the 1890s until the 1930s, during which time they updated the manor house and undertook a building programme in the village, including creating a recreation ground. This coincided with a period of considerable economic and social change, which was mirrored by legislation which was introduced to improve social housing.
Based on map evidence, before 1900 they built Little Worth Cottages, which are three pairs of cottages which lie to the north of Manor Cottage, but since altered; a row of cottages numbered 46, 47 and 48 Main Street; and the Reading Room adjacent to them which is now a community hall. After 1900 they built two pairs of cottages on the main road (A422), and Manor Cottage and the Hermitage. The Hermitage may have been built as a lodge, and like Manor Cottage is built of ironstone. Westbury Manor has been considerably extended from the L-shaped footprint shown on the 1900 OS map.
REASONS FOR DESIGNATION:
Manor Cottage, probably built in 1908 as a pair of estate cottages, is listed Grade II for the following principal reasons:
- It is built to a high standard with strong architectural form and use of materials.
- The cottages were part of an estate building programme from the 1890s to 1930s which coincides with a period of considerable social and economic change (B1).