Summary
Late C18 farm manager's house with separate front entrances for domestic and business use. Built for the Hovingham Estate.
Reasons for Designation
Bramcote is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Date: as a good example of late C18 domestic architecture retaining a good range of period features of both polite and local vernacular character;
* Architectural interest: the way that the front elevation emulates two cottages indicates a degree of architectural sophistication;
* Social history: the two front doors, the internal plan form and the clear hierarchy of rooms, indicated by the surviving period features and joinery, sheds light on late C18 and early C19 social history and the use of the house by a relatively high status employee of the local estate.
History
Bramcote was originally listed without an internal inspection. Because of the two front doors it was identified as formally being two houses and was dated, on external evidence, to being early C19. The interior indicates that the building was a single house, probably from its construction sometime in the late C18. Bramcote is thought to have been built by the Hovingham Estate for the estate's farm manager: the two front doors allowing a separation between the polite, domestic side of the house from the western, service side, this also used for farm estate business. The dining room (the central room on the ground floor) is connected to the service side of the house (which includes the kitchen) with a doorway that is clearly original and which opens immediately adjacent to the western front door suggesting that the dining room was also used by the manger to conduct business. The two parts of the house are believed to have originally been divided on the first floor, however they are now interconnected, and the site of the service end's staircase (which may have been a ladder) has been lost. The attic of the whole building is accessed via an original staircase in the service end of the building and is believed to have been used as accommodation for farm labourers.
Details
Farm manager's house, late C18 for the Hovingham estate.
MATERIALS: hammer-dressed limestone, squared and laid to diminishing courses; pantile roof; early brick chimney stacks.
PLAN: the eastern two thirds of the house forms the formal domestic side, and has a central entrance leading through to the stairs accommodated in the rear outshut. This front entrance is now blocked internally with the entrance passage opened up to enlarge the drawing room (eastern reception room). The central ground floor room (dining room) has an original doorway through to the western third of the house, this doorway opening adjacent to the house's second front door. The two parts of the house are believed to have been originally separated at first floor level, with the attics being interconnected and accessed from the service end of the building. However the internal plan form of the service end of the house has been modified, with the loss of its presumed ground floor stairs. The domestic end of the house also has a single room cellar accessed from the stair hall.
EXTERIOR: front (north): two storeys, three bays with evenly distributed openings, all with flat arches formed with voussoirs. The two front doors are both of six fielded panels with a simple 3-light overlight above. The eastern four windows are 6-over-6 hornless vertical sashes. The two windows of the western service side are 6-by-6 Yorkshire horizontal sashes in reduced openings. A scar line indicates that the eastern (domestic) front door formally had a gabled porch roof. The lower status western front door shows no evidence of formally having a porch. The roof has plain verges and is topped by ridge and end stacks.
West gable: two attic windows, one with a timber lintel and a 6-by-6 Yorkshire sash, the second window being a late C20 insertion. The first floor is blind. The ground floor has a small 4-light window beneath a wedge lintel and possible evidence of a blocked side door to the south.
East gable: abuts the neighbouring property.
Rear (south): scattered fenestration, generally with timber lintels and either Yorkshire or vertical sashes. Only the eastern bay extends as a rear outshut, this having a catslide roof. The middle bay is extended with a modern conservatory.
INTERIOR: this retains a good range of period features including the main staircase (closed string with stick balusters), architraves and other joinery. Internal doors are pine, 4-panelled and generally rehung. Most windows (both floors) retain working shutters and their treatment displays the hierarchy of rooms; the best have panelled soffits to the reveals and timber window seats while the lowest status are simple shutters placed in reveals that lack architraves or other timbering. The dining room retains a hob grate set in a simple Classical surround with mantle shelf and a similar fireplace survives in the principal bedroom on the first floor, this latter fireplace being flanked by built-in display cupboards. The drawing room also has built-in display cupboards flanking the fireplace, although the fireplace here appears to be a later replacement. Underneath the attic stair is an early cupboard door formed from two broad planks and hung on butterfly hinges. The roof structure appears to be largely original with pegged joints and staggered, tenoned purlins.
