Garsdon Manor, Lea and Cleverton, Wiltshire, SN16 (Grade II*)

ST 98 NE LEA & CLEVERTON GARSDON

6/102 Garsdon Manor

12.12.51

Manor House. Late C14 open hall range to the west with early C17 addition restored post 1661 and further restoration and alterations in the C19 and C20. Squared and coursed rubble with flush rusticated dressed stone quoins, stone dressings and stone slate roofs with tall paired ashlar stacks with moulded caps. Irregular L-shaped plan with C14 core range projecting west to the rear of C17 block. South front with 2-storey and attic, 2-window C14 hall range to left (2 eastern bays masked) and advanced 3-storey, 3- window C17 block. Windows to C14 range are 2-light C19 casements under cambered heads; 2 hipped dormers. Windows to C17 block are 6-light ovolo-moulded cross-mullions. Circa 1840 doorway in west end bay with 2 round-headed lights. Moulded string courses above second and third storey windows, blocking course developing in each bay to a gable; double-span roof. East front has range with 2- light cavetto-moulded mullions with hood-moulds to upper floor only. Interior: C14 four-bay open hall (now divided) has original butt- purlin, hammer-beam arched collar-truss roof structure with 4-way kingposts and wind-braces. Great Parlour on first floor in C17 block has fine c1630 stone chimneypiece: coupled columned jambs and carved over-mantel with strapwork and caryatids. Plaster ceiling of the 1660s with moulded cornice and broad ribbed strapwork with tree motifs; further identical plaster decoration in first floor room to east. The manor was owned by Richard Moody in the early C16, Sir Laurence Washington in the early C17 and passed by marriage in 1661 to Sir William Pargiter whose rebus is displayed in the pear-tree decoration to the great parlour ceiling (partridge in a pear-tree). (Aubrey & Jackson, Wiltshire Collections, 1862; June Badeni, Wiltshire Forefathers, 1960; N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England: Wiltshire, 1975)