Most people would have taken one look at the surveyor’s scathing report on the
Old Manor House in Knaresborough, North Yorkshire, and simply walked away.
The 26-page document listed a catalogue of problems - rising damp, rampant
wood beetles, a decaying roof and an archaic heating system - and gave a
blunt warning that making it habitable would probably break any estimated
budget.
David Rance, 59, a management consultant, was one of those who would not have
given it a second glance had it not been for his wife, Jayne, who was “blown
away” by the unusual chequered black-and-white medieval house on the banks
of the River Nidd.
“It was an emotional reaction,” says Jayne, 54. “As soon as we walked through
the gate, I knew it needed saving. It was a wreck, and I know it was
madness, but sometimes a house finds you, rather than the other way round.”
David, too, was soon won over, especially when he stepped into the
oak-panelled sitting room, dominated by a heavy oak chimney piece believed
to have been made in 1661, to commemorate Charles II’s accession to the
throne. “Sit down for a moment and tell me what you hear,” he says, relaxing
into a large sofa. “Can you hear that? Complete silence. We’re in the middle
of town yet it’s utterly peaceful.”
In fact, the entire house is remarkably quiet, considering that one wall
supports a road running above it, and that it used to be a restaurant
popular with tourists. “The restaurant was closed years ago, but one
morning, two old ladies came wandering down the path, walked inside and
asked for two cups of tea,” Jayne says. “They seemed quite put out when I
told them it was now a private house.”
The Grade II-listed building, which the couple bought 11 years ago, is a
Knaresborough landmark. Local history books suggest that in the early 13th
century a hunting lodge was built on the site for King John when he
travelled north for a few weeks’ sport. It was constructed around a large,
rooted oak tree, using its pared-down trunk as the main support and its
lower branches as ceiling joists. The main part of the house dates to the
early 17th century.
Jayne lifts a latch on a crooked oak door in the dining room wall to reveal
the gnarled, squared trunk that still stands in the centre of the house.
Stuck to the back of the door is a bill giving notice of Knaresborough Fair
on February 16, 1756 – though most of it has been obscured by 20th-century
paint and varnish. The top half of the trunk is on the landing, but the tree
had to be cut at this point when part of the roof collapsed in the 19th
century.
According to G Bernard Wood’s Historic Homes of Yorkshire, published in 1957,
James I gave the house to his son, the future Charles I, to use as a fishing
lodge. “Something stronger than mere tradition declares that a defeated
Charles signed the treaty of capitulation in Cromwell’s presence, in this
very house,” Wood wrote. “The spacious Oak Room [now the sitting room] is
the most likely room for this episode.”
Wood says that the Old Manor House also contained a bed used by Cromwell, who
moved to the house from a property on the high street, where he lodged
during the siege of Knaresborough Castle in 1644. The bed was listed in the
fixtures and fittings when the Rances were preparing to buy the house, but
had gone by the time they moved in. Its whereabouts remain a mystery.
It was clearly in situ when the house was owned and occupied by the
Roundells, a prosperous, respected Knaresborough family who remained there
until the early 20th century. The checked pattern on the exterior walls is
believed to have been painted on by a chess-loving Roundell a century
earlier. The house served as a tearoom, guest-house and restaurant until a
property developer bought it in the late 1980s and rented it out for several
years.
“By the time we came along, it was in a sorry state,” Jayne recalls.
“Fortunately, we weren’t looking for the perfect house.” The couple were
living in a modern gated development near Windsor Castle when David’s job
took them to Jayne’s native Yorkshire in 1996. “We were looking for a house
to renovate. I didn’t want to be a bored housewife,” Jayne says.
There has been little chance of that with the Old Manor House. At £235,000,
the five-bedroom property, with a large riverside garden, seemed a bargain -
until the Rances received the surveyor’s report. Although the house was
structurally sound, and the oldest parts had withstood the test of time,
later additions had not fared so well.
“We spent a lot of time undoing other people’s mistakes,” Jayne says. “I don’t
think the owners in the past century had much respect for the property’s
history. We found rubber-backed carpets stuck to the original floorboards
and wallpaper over the panelling. The flagstone floor in the dining room had
been covered with yachting varnish which had damaged the surface.
“We have pictures of the house, taken in the last century, showing rooms full
of ancient furniture – including Cromwell’s bedstead – but all that had gone
by the time we bought it.”
Jayne is determined that the house’s remaining “treasures” should be protected
– and wants to obtain a preservation order for the 400-year-old mulberry
tree in the garden. According to Wood, it was planted at the command of
James I to encourage the newly established silk industry, providing food for
the silkworms.
“It’s the most amazing tree, which fruits every year - though most of it falls
off and gets eaten by the birds,” Jayne says. “I would hate someone to chop
it down when we’ve gone.”
The couple, who have a daughter, Bee, 14, have gone to great lengths to
restore the original character of the house, sifting through the extensions,
alterations and reconstructions that have taken place over the centuries.
During the first nine months, Jayne oversaw the demolition of an
“unsympathetic” extension; the building of a kitchen extension, using
reclaimed stone, roof slates and timbers; the tanking of the original cellar
to prevent flood damage and rising damp; replumbing and rewiring hidden
behind reclaimed wooden skirting boards; the replacement of rotten windows
to match the original mullioned ones; and the cleaning of floors, beams and
oak panelling. It has cost them £200,000 – including £48,000 on building
work that involved propping the bankside with a concrete platform and
balusters before the extension could be built, and £10,000 on creating a
medieval garden.
“The garden was unkempt and uninspiring when we bought the house,” Jayne
recalls. “I spent a lot of time in the library researching medieval garden
designs before the builder came and dug the foundations for the low walls
and symmetrical paths. I planted box hedging, rosemary and lavender.”
After having invested so much time, energy and money, the Rances had planned
to stay for years. “We thought we’d be leaving here in a box,” says Jayne.
But with Bee at boarding school and David’s two older daughters, Elizabeth
and Johanna, married with children, they decided to move to something
smaller in Knaresborough.
“Everyone thought we were mad to take this on,” Jayne says. “Even the surveyor
said, ‘Can’t you find something better than this?’ But I think we’ve
restored the building’s integrity and helped to preserve some of its
history. We feel like its guardians, and we would like to sell it to people
who will look after its past, as well as its future.”
The Old Manor House, in Knaresborough, is for sale for £975,000 with Carter
Jonas; 01423 523423, www.carterjonas.co.uk
Great to see the Old Manor House in the news. I had my wedding reception there in 1972 and was pleased to see such a sensitive restoration.
Jean McEntegart, Wellington, New Zealand