Old Ramerick Manor

Details

ICKLEFORD BEDFORD ROAD TL 13 SE (East side)

2/41 Old Ramerick Manor 9.6.52

- II*

Manor house, now a farmhouse. Late medieval former open hall house incorporated in later additions. C16 E crosswing; a farmhouse by 1625; hall floored in stages in C17; late C17 NE wing (a granary on 1st floor); W front bay, staircase wing at rear, and regular brick front to house early C18. NW service wing has date 'RE/1829' cut over entrance. Restored 1953-4. Presumably timber framed (suggested by record of breaking down part of wall during seizure by Lord Cobham in 1530), NE wing of clunch masonry with red brick dressings and independent timber supporting structure to 1st floor granary, front of dark red brick with some blue bricks and lighter red brick dressings, red brick to NW wing, roughcast exterior to rear stair wing. Steep old red tile roofs, hipped with zig-zag tile patterning to front, extending as catslide over rear outshut, and hipped on NW wing. A large 2-storeys house about 400M to E of main road standing at N of farmstead facing S on a site still moated on 2 sides. Near symmetrical S front has 1st floor windows grouped 2:3:2, central 6-panels moulded door in Doric pilastered surround with flat entablature, corresponding windows on ground floor but LH pair replaced c.1900 by rectangular brick bay with 3 sash windows with 8/1 panes and parapet. This front has a projecting band at eaves level below the parapet, and flush-box sash windows with flat gauged arches and 6/6 panes. Large chimney with triangular pilaster strip to RH of door. Similar front to E end. 2-storeys and attic NE wing has gable parapets on corbelled brick kneelers and roughcast gable triangle. Chimney inserted in early C19 to serve farm office in base. 2-storeys NW service wing faces W with 2 windows to each floor and inscription in blind recess over central porch. Large internal chimney separates kitchen on S from dairy at N connecting with lower cellar in rear outshut behind W room of main range. Gabled stair wing projects at rear over catslide in angle with E wing. Large rear-wall chimney to hall with gabled dormer to each side. Interior has fine cut string staircase with 2 barley-sugar balusters per tread, carved tread ends, swept handrail on barley-sugar newels, outswept at foot beside hall fireplace. Jacobean oak chimneypiece with swagged Ionic pilasters on pedestals flanking opening, and Composite caryatides to overmantle with strapwork ornament and perspective design in square central feature with niche in middle in dentilled pedimented frame. Twin keyblocked segmental openings on E wall of hall. In E wing axial beam, late C16 fireplace with 3 round-headed niches above lintel, and clasped-purlin roof structure. House and manor continuously owned by St. John's College Cambridge since 1520/1. (VCH Beds II (1908)286: RCHM (1911)129: VCH (1912)21-2: Pevsner. (1977)209: RCHM Typescript).

Listing NGR: TL1717535009

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

163051

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Doubleday, A, The Victoria History of the County of Hertford, (1912), 21-2
Doubleday, AH, Page, W, The Victoria History of the County of Bedford, (1908), 286
Pevsner, N, Cherry, B, The Buildings of England: Hertfordshire, (1977)

Other
Inventory of the Historical Monuments of Hertfordshire, (1910)

End of official list entry

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