Halsway Manor

Infobox Historic building

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caption=
name=Halsway Manor
location_town=Halsway
location_country=England
map_type=Somerset
latitude= 51.1326
longitude= -3.2454
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construction_start_date=
completion_date=15th century
date_demolished=
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Halsway Manor is a manor house in Halsway, Somerset, now used as England's National Centre for Traditional Music, Dance and Song. It is the only residential folk centre in the UK.

The eastern end of the building dates from the fifteenth century; the western end is a nineteenth-century addition. [cite web |url=http://www.halswaymanor.co.uk/manor/manor.html |title= History of the Manor|accessdate=2007-11-17 |format= |work=Halsway Manor ] The manor, which is mentioned in the Domesday Book, was built by Cardinal Beaufort as a hunting lodge.cite book
url=http://books.google.com/books?id=O8YuAAAAMAAJ&client=firefox-a
title=An Exploration of Exmoor and the Hill Country of West Somerset: With Notes
author=John Lloyd Warden
year=1895
publisher=Seeley & Co., Ltd.] At one point it was occupied by insurrectionist Jack Cade. Thereafter it was a family home until the mid 1960s,cite web |url=http://www.picturesofengland.com/England/Somerset/Crowcombe/Halsway_Manor |title=About Halsway Manor |accessdate=2007-11-17 |format= |work=Pictures of England ] when it became the folk music centre. It has been designated by English Heritage as a grade II* listed building. [cite web | title=Halsway Manor | work=Images of England | url=http://www.imagesofengland.org.uk/search/details.aspx?id=265065 | accessdate=2007-11-17]

In 1859, John Henry Parker wrote in his "Account of Domestic Architecture":quote|The front is nearly perfect, with a parapet battlemented and enriched with quatre-foil panels, two projections having also battlements and pinnacles, a bay-window, and a good small chimney, some curious gargoyles, and a good bell-cot. The front is long and low, and has three doorways; the hall forms only a small part of the house.cite book|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=RisDAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA341|title=Some account of domestic architecture in England, from Richard ii. to Henry vii.|author=John Henry Parker|year=1859|publisher=Oxford]

References