Summary
House dating to 1730 with an earlier wing of probable C17 date.
Reasons for Designation
Manor Farm Cottage, dating to 1730 with an earlier wing of probable C17 date, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* despite the extensions, the house retains an C18 core with a well-preserved three-bay plan form;
* historic chimneypieces and joinery survive, along with structural timbers and a rear wing of an earlier date which retains evidence – in the form of truncated purlins – of how the building evolved.
History
Manor Farm Cottage was part of the wider Hardwick Hall estate for about 400 years until the estate was taken over by the National Trust after the death of the 10th Duke of Devonshire in 1950. The house is thought to date to 1730 as a coin bearing this date was found when the stone window sills were removed around the mid-C20. It has an earlier cross wing which forms part of what probably originated in the C17 as a one-and-a-half storey house. This was truncated when the new house was built at right angles to it in the C18. The Wass family lived in the house during the C18 and into the C19. On the first edition Ordnance Survey (OS) map of 1877 the house is shown with a T-shaped plan consisting of the south-facing C18 range and the earlier, short cross wing on the north side. A small outbuilding in the garden to the east was a pigsty. There is no change to the footprint of the house on the OS maps of 1899, 1917 and 1961. The 1970 map shows that the area between the cross wing and west end of the main range was infilled at some point in the 1960s. This extension has since been rebuilt.
The house was renovated in the 1980s. The front windows were replaced and the window openings on the first floor were enlarged. During the removal of a later ceiling from the ground-floor room to the left of the front door, the original lath and plaster ceiling also came down. A small gabled entrance porch has been built on the west side of the frontage, and in 1996 an extension and conservatory was built on the east gable end of the house. The old pigsty has been subsumed by a row of garages.
Details
House dating to 1730 with an earlier wing of probable C17 date.
MATERIALS: coursed coal measure sandstone, locally quarried, and a slate roof covering with red brick chimney stacks.
PLAN: the south-facing house has an approximately rectangular plan consisting of an C18 front range with a short, earlier cross wing.
The entrance porch, extensions on the east and west ends, and conservatory, all of late C20 date, do not contribute to the architectural quality of the original design.
EXTERIOR: the original two-storey C18 house has three bays and a shallow pitched roof with red brick chimney stacks at the gable ends. The central six-panelled front door and its surround are of late C20 date. It is flanked by eight-over-eight pane sash windows which, along with the first-floor sash windows and their sills and lintels, are also of late C20 date. A late C20 gabled entrance porch projects from the west end of the façade. Adjoining the west gable end is a single-storey projection, thought to possibly have been a dairy or laundry. Adjoining the east gable end is a slightly set back, late C20, two-bay extension of two storeys which is in a similar style to the original house. A conservatory is attached to the east gable end.
At the rear of the house are three gabled cross wings, the outer ones being the late C20 extensions. The central wing, which is the oldest part of the house, is one and a half storeys high. It has large stone quoins and a steeply pitched roof with a red brick chimney stack at the gable end, and a skylight on the west slope. The east side is lit at ground-floor level by a two-light mullioned window which has a chamfered central mullion and a tooled surround. There is a blocked up mullion in the gable end.
INTERIOR: the front door opens into a small hall with a rear straight flight stair. The rooms either side have chamfered bridging beams with simple moulded chamfer stops and joists which retain remnants of a white/ beige paint. The room in the first bay (to the left of the hall) has a wide plain stone chimneypiece, with carved console jambs, now fitted with an Aga. On the south wall is a built-in cupboard with raised and fielded panels and H-hinges. The room in the third bay has a simple stone fireplace with a plain mantelshelf and jambs, and to the left a small square opening framed in stone. On the ground floor the C18 two-panelled doors retain strap hinges and their original frames which have a roll moulding. The single-storey room adjoining the first bay, now a fitted kitchen, is thought to have been a dairy or laundry and it retains a roughly chamfered bridging beam with hooks. On the first floor the roof purlins are exposed. In the rear wing, there is a plain stone fireplace with a mantelshelf supported by roughly consoled stones at the top of the jambs. On the first floor the wooden doorframe into the cross wing survives, as do the truncated purlins which were sawn through to make way for the C18 range. Underneath the cross wing is a cellar with a bow-shaped ceiling.
