The Manor House and Rhodes House, Sleaford
The Manor House (No. 31, Northgate)
Location	Sleaford, Lincolnshire, England
OS grid reference	TF 06768 46001
Built	16th and 17th centuries with significant 19th century additions (No. 31); mid-18th century (No. 33)
Listed Building – Grade II*
Official name	Manor House, Rhodes House, wall and gate piers to cobbled yard and garden wall to no. 33
Designated	16 July 1949
Reference no.	1168499
Location of The Manor House and Rhodes House, Sleaford in Lincolnshire

The Manor House, Sleaford, is a set of connected buildings located on Northgate in the English town of Sleaford, Lincolnshire. A complex arrangement, parts of the Manor House date to the 16th century, but they were extended with the addition of the Georgian Rhodes House and later Gothic work. It was a private residence until the 20th century, and is now divided into commercial properties. The house was owned by a number of families and individuals, including local banker and businessman Benjamin Handley and Sophia Peacock, whose nephews, Cecil and Frank Rhodes, spent their summers at the estate as children.

The building is divided into two plots: The Manor House (No. 31) and Rhodes House (No. 33). The former is a complex of buildings, mostly in stone. It is accessed through a cobbled courtyard, with a 19th century Gothic west front, including a small tower; part of the north side of the yard is a 17th century gabled building. The brick-built Rhodes House faces directly onto the street. Described by Sir Nikolaus Pevsner and John Harris as "a jigsaw puzzle",^[1] the Manor House is notable for its re-use of medieval masonry, some dating 14th century and others likely being removed from Sleaford Castle. In 1949, English Heritage declared the group a Grade II* listed building, recognising it as a "particularly important building of more than special interest."^[2]

The origins of the Manor House and its early history are not clear. Writing in 1872, Edward Trollope mentioned it in his history of the Sleaford, writing that "all its details are not honestly known".^[3] English Heritage and the architectural historians Sir Nikolaus Pevsner and John Harris date parts of No. 31 to the 17th century and categorise most of No. 33 as mid-18th century and "mid-Georgian" respectively;^[1][4] however, local historian Dr Simon Pawley, states that No. 33 is 19th century.^[5] An estates map of 1766 shows that the plot was not part of the common field system around Sleaford.^[6] The more detailed Cragg Map, dated to c. 1770, shows a building on a plot owned by Robert Banks, corresponding to the location of Rhodes House.^[7] An enclosure map completed in 1794 shows a small building at the site, set back slightly from the road and adjoined by a larger one to the north, which faced onto the street; the location and layout also correspond closely to the arrangement of the older parts of Nos. 31 and 33.^[8]

By the 19th century, the house was occupied by local banker and businessman Benjamin Handley (1754–1828).^[9] Maurice Peter Moore (1809–1866), clerk of the peace for Kesteven, lived at the house from at least 1851 until his death.^[10][11][12] The son of Rev. Dr William Moore, vicar of Spalding, he was admitted a solicitor in 1831,^[13] was living in Sleaford by 1834, when he is recorded owning a property on North Street,^[14] and in partnership with the Sleaford solicitor William Forbes by 1841.^[13] Forbes died the following year and Moore went into partnership with Henry Peake (died 1886), who ran the firm with Charles England and later Henry Snow after Moore's death.^[13] Moore married Ann Gardiner Peacock in 1834.^[15][16] Their first daughter, Florence, died an infant in 1838^[17] and Ann Moore died giving birth to their only surviving child, Anne Louisa Russell (known as Russell), in 1839.^[15][18]

As early as 1858, Moore considered disinheriting his daughter, writing that "Russell's conduct towards me continues to be cold and heartless ... and I must look on her as not deserving to inherit from me".^[15] Sophia Peacock, a sister of his wife, was closely involved in Russell's up-bringing and Moore developed romantic feelings for her; in 1858, he changed his will to give her his property instead of Russell.^[15] But, Sophia rejected his proposition to marry and he disinherited her the following year.^[15] Despite Moore's "vehement objections",^[15] his daughter married George Edward Corrance in 1860. After a year she eloped with Colonel Edward William de Lancey Lowe; they married in 1866, after Corrance divorced her on grounds of adultery.^[15][19] Her father "had always reason to be dissatisfied with her conduct" and, three months before his death, he made a new will and bequeathed all of his property to Peacock.^[18] After Moore's death, Russell Lowe and her maternal uncle, Rev. Edward Moore opened a court case to contest the will.^[15] In March 1868, the courts found that the will was legal. Sophia Peacock inherited nearly all of Moore's estate.^[18]

Sophia and Ann Gardiner Peacock's father, Anthony Taylor Peacock (1769–1829) of South Kyme,^[16] was a wealthy banker and his father, Anthony Peacock, was a land-owner, who had worked closely with Benjamin Handley as a sponsor of the Sleaford Navigation and commissioner of enclosures in the 1790s.^[20] Among the younger Peacock's other daughters was Louisa (died 1873), who married Rev. Francis William Rhodes (1807–1878) in 1844.^[21][22] Louisa and Francis Rhodes's nine children included Cecil Rhodes and Frank Rhodes;^[21] they spent their childhood summers with their aunt Sophia at the Manor House in Sleaford and in the Channel Islands.^[23] Frank and Cecil learnt to ride at the Manor and it was during these visits to Sleaford that Cecil began his long friendship with Robert Yerburgh, a son of the town's vicar.^[23] On Sophia Peacock's death in 1892,^[24] Frank Rhodes inherited the Manor House.^[25] He was still living there in 1897.^[26]

Elizabeth Cross, moved to Sleaford after the death of her husband, Rev. John Edward Cross (1821−1897), a prebendary of Lincoln.^[27][28] In 1897, she rented the Manor House from Rhodes and remained there until her death in 1923.^[27][29] She purchased ancient buildings around Lincolnshire so that their old stonework could be incorporated into the house.^[9] It was put up for sale in 1924 and, by the following year, James Gordon Jeudwine and his wife were resident at the house.^[9][30] Jeudwine was a son of Canon George Wynne Jeudwine (died 1933);^[31] a solictor, he became a partner in the firm Peake, Snow and Peake in 1937, the same year that he was appointed Clerk to the Justices of the Sleaford Petty Sessional Division.^[32][33] He lived at the house until his death from injuries received in a car accident in 1941.^[34][35] By the 1960s, ownership had changed hands again: the Manor House was sold by C. B. Cliff to H. A. Mills of Newark in 1967.^[36]

The buildings were divided in the early 20th century and house a number of commercial outlets. From at least 1934, law firm Ernest H. Godwin & Co. were occupying Nos. 27−31 Northgate. Solicitor R. J. Betteridge was also practising from No. 31 in 1974.^[37] He had formed a partnership with G. R. Sills in 1948 and the successor company, Sills and Betteridge merged with Godsons in 2010, who were still occupying Nos. 27−31.^[38][39] The company remains there, as of 2015.^[40] From the 1960s to 1992, Sleaford Medical Group practised at Rhodes House and since at least 1985 an architectural practice owned by Tim Benton has occupied No. 33.^[41][42][43]

The Manor House is a complicated group of buildings. Its earliest part dates from the 16th century, although it is built with stone-work from two centuries earlier. No. 31 is largely 19th century, incorporating older buildings and inset with medieval elements. Sir Nikolaus Pevsner summarised that "it is hard to discriminate between what is genuine and what is 19th century fancy".^[1] No. 33 is mid-Georgian.

No. 31 is accessed through two 18th century gate-piers adorned with pineapple finials which open onto a cobbled courtyard in front of the house.^[1][4] The western facade is 19th century and stone; a single-storey, it incorporates a Gothic window to the right of a tower, in the centre of which is a 14th century door, beneath a small pointed window. The rear of this buildings also contains a blend of medieval features, including a 14th century head of a king, set into a chimney.^[1] The north side of the courtyard contains a projected square bay dated to 1637 and incorporates an octagonal 14th century chimney piece, reckoned to have belonged to the Old Deanery in Lincoln.^[1] This joins to an 18th century brick section, which is connected to the right with a 17th century crow-stepped gabled stone house.^[1][4] A stone wall attached to that section is inset by a blocked door; the base of the door forms a dog's water fountain.^[4] The doorway, along with some of the other imported stonework, was probably taken from the decaying Sleaford Castle, now ruined.^[4]

Rhodes House, No. 33, dates to the mid-18th century. A three-storey brick building with five bays and a classical stone doorcase, with Doric columns and an entabulature. To the north is a two-storey mid-19th century extension, also in brick, and an adjoining former garden wall.^[4] The rear of the house has seven bays and two projecting wings, dating to the 18th century.^[1] Internally, one room has 17th century panelling of a Tudor design.^[4]

• John Burke and John Bernard Burke (1846). A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Landed Genrtry, volume II (London: Henry Colburn). OCLC 669126299
• Charles Ellis (ed.) (1981). Mid-Victorian Sleaford: 1851–1871 (Lincoln: Lincolnshire Library Service). ISBN 0861111028
• G. T. Hutchinson (1908). Frank Rhodes: a Memoir (London: privately printed). OCLC 18046234
• Simon Pawley (1996). The Book of Sleaford (Baron Birch for Quotes Ltd.) ISBN 0860235599
• Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, John Harris (Nicholas Antram, rev.) (2002). The Buildings of England, vol. 27 ["Lincolnshire"], 2nd edition (Yale University Press: Yale) ISBN 0140710272
• Robert I. Rotberg (1988). The Founder: Cecil Rhodes and the Pursuit of Power (Oxford: Oxford University Press). ISBN 0195049683
• Shula Marks Stanley Trapido (2013). "Rhodes, Cecil John (1853–1902)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press). (Subscription or UK public library membership required).

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