NHER 22171 (Building record) - Welle Manor Hall, Upwell

Welle Manor Hall, formerly Rectory.

Mid 14th century, altered 1480, 17th century and 20th century. Brick slate and tile roofs. North front three storeys. Full height porch around 1480 to left, stone arched doorway with roll and hollow mouldings. Plank and muntin door to hall. First floor sash window of porch in original hoodmoulded opening. Stepped gable with ashlar pinnacle. Right of porch two bays with stepped gables seperated by buttress. Floors defined by arcade of brick trefoils, lower cut by buttress. Three wooden cross windows on ground floor, two on first, one in gable of each bay. Facade closed to right by polygonal stair turret with arched door. Left of porch, large brick 19th century extension, two bays and dormers, large external chimney. Ridge stack right of centre. West return with external stack rising from narrow brick bay. To left one two light rounded window. South front has two gabled bays with another, 15th century polygonal full height stair turret, but with 19th century roof. Abutting to left is square tower, two storeys, probably 14th century also with 19th century roof. Various window openings in these turrets. Stepped buttress supports western gable with segmental headed doorway to right. 19th century extension to east, two storeys and dormers. Gabled crosswing to right with bay window.

Interior: ornate 15th century doorway from porch to hall. Two service doors in hall now blocked, each of around 1360 with wave mouldings etc. Rear staircase turret has spiral brick stairs to attic. First floor music room with two blocked lancets with leaded glass. Crownpost roof with straight braces to tiebeams and 'crown purlin' (=collar purlin?). Crown posts square sectioned, 15th century, but most timbers renewed.

To north of house two towers flanking former courtyard entrance in wall. Wall now demolished. Around 1480, brick, octagonal, brick spiral staircase. Doors to south, three trefoils; crenellated parapet. East tower converted to dovecot.
Information from English Heritage Listing 1985 (S1).
Compiled by E. Rose (NAU), 31 January 1986.

Tourist advertising leaflet seen briefly by E. Rose (NUA) about 1980 described this wrongly as in Outwell [1], open to the public 'and including a Saxon grave and a Roman pavement'. No other details known of these.
E. Rose (NAU), 2 April 1986.

Source told E. Rose (NLA) that the Roman pavement refers to a small area of tessellation 'identical to that displayed in Upwell churchyard' (NHER 69146) exposed when a pipe trench was excavated past the gate towers. The 'Saxon grave' was newspaper exaggeration. [1]
E. Rose (NLA), 10 July 1997.

The same source told E. Rose (NLA) in 1997 that he uncovered an original doorway retaining hinge pintles behind a later fireplace and built a bay window with bricks from a demolished cottage which itself had been built with bricks from the demolished precinct wall.
E. Rose (NLA), 26 September 1997.

Extract from Cambridge Sites and Monuments Record (in which county this once was) in secondary file.