Listed Building record MDR11349 - Manor Farm, Annwell Lane, Smisby

The manor of Smithsby [sic], at the Domesday Survey, pertained to Nigel de Stafford. By c. 1480 it had come to the Kendall family of Twycross, in whose hands it remained until it was sold in 1660 to the ancestors of Sir John Crewe. Smithsby Hall, for so many generations the seat of the Kendalls, adjoins the churchyard on the west side. It has now been long used as a farm-house. (1) Farmhouse of 16th and 17th century date, altered in the 19th and 20th centuries. Constructed of coursed squared sandstone and red brick with plain tile roofs. The interior is said to have been extensively modernised, retaining some exposed beams and, on the top floor, a four-centred arched chimneypiece with moulded surround and 18th century hobgrate. Listed, grade II. (2) Smisby Manor House. The remnant of what was alleged to be a massive early 14th century house, a corner of which was rebuilt from the ground up in the later 16th century. The centre is tall, three storeys and attics, with two smallish gables. The east side is set back and plainer, and to the west a longer, lower range of four bays and two storeys, the upper windows having he eaves cambered over them, indicating a previous thatched phase. In the last years of the 18th century, Stebbing Shaw noted that some of the walls of the original edifice were still remaining and that it had once been 'strongly fortified', although no licence to crenellate survives. Henry Kendall paid tax on 12 hearths in 1662 and sold it in 1665 to the Harpurs who turned it into a tenanted farmhouse, which role it has fulfilled, with occasional exceptions, since. It was sold in 1978 with 158 acres. (3)