Building record MDD 028 - Manor House, Leiston Road

Manor House adjoins the western side of Leiston Road in the hamlet and former parish of Fordley, approximately 400 m south-east of Middleton Village. The site appears to occupy the northern tip of an enclosed medieval green, and contains a small early-17th century timber-framed and rendered farmhouse of 1.5 storeys attached by a series of 20th century single-storied extensions to an early-19 th century flint-rubble stable and an 18th century timber-framed barn. At the time of the tithe survey in 1839 it formed a modest arable holding of just under 8 acres in several dispersed fields, although its owner leased at least three additional acres from a neighbour.

The building was converted into a pair of cottages at the end of the 19th century and its present name appears to date only from a restoration of the early 1920s. The original timber frame is of considerable historic interest and fully merits its listing at grade II, despite a further extensive restoration of the 1960s or 70s which saw the renewal of almost all its windows and the replacement of its thatch with cement treble tiles (although the thatch may have been lost in 20s). The original layout reflects the standard three-cell pattern of the early 17th century with a central hall flanked by a parlour and high-end chimney to the east and a single service room on the west. No fewer than three windows with intact diamond mullions survive on the upper storey, one of which has been re-glazed, and the chamfered hall ceiling with 16-inch wide oak floorboards in the chamber above is particularly impressive. The hall and service bays are slightly earlier than that of the parlour, which may have been built as an early extension to a two-cell house with a large gable chimney. The present fireplace in the parlour is a later insertion which involved the reconstruction of its ceiling.

The barn is a three-bay structure of modest scale with an intact brick threshing floor in its central bay that was originally entered from the north (the same direction as the house). Its roof and rear wall have been rebuilt, but the intact re-used studs, arch-braced tie-beams and pegged primary bracing of the gables and front wall are typical of the mid- to late-18th century. A section of original external roughcast render has been preserved by the flint-rubble stable with brick dressing that was added to its western gable in the early-19th century. This stable was re-roofed with softwood in recent years and has been stripped of any historic fixtures and fittings, and neither the barn nor the stable are of sufficient age or sufficiently well preserved to meet the criteria for listing in their own right. The house remained detached from its agricultural buildings until the 1960s or 70s but is now linked to the corner of the stable and by means of an internal passage within the stable to the barn. The proposed alterations involve a mid-20th century staircase and changes to a late-20th century lean-to conservatory that was not shown in its present form on the Ordnance Survey of 1978 (S1).