Froyle Manor, alias West
End and also Place Farm, adjoins the grounds of Froyle Place, and
is now part of the Lord
Mayor Treloar School. The house, faced in early Georgian red brick,
is a high, steeply roofed building, the evolution of which is difficult
to
deduce; several of the rooms are panelled in bolection wainscot which,
with the staircase, can scarcely be later than 1730. William Draper
succeeded
Gauden Draper as squire at Froyle Place in 1710: a big improvement
of the home farmhouse may have been undertaken at that date, possibly
to
convert it into a dower house. An unusual feature of the staircase
is the decoration of the under surface of the upper flight with
crudely painted
landscapes, recalling distantly the “King of Grisaille” scenes
introduced by Thornhill in some of the lower surfaces of his painted
hall
and staircase at Stoke Edith, circa 1725. This picture is from a postcard
dated 1905. |
