Upstairs at Manor Farm, Wroxall

From the hallway in the farmhouse there was a door up to the first flight of stairs, which connected to the back stairs, then turning up the next section there was a frozen glass window on the right which looked into the bathroom. Reaching the upstairs level there was a corridor to the right with the bathroom off. This was a large room, I suspect it had originally been a bedroom, with a huge built in bath on one corner. It had lovely wide dark wood surrounding its top edge. The outside window overlooked the grey slate roof of the china pantry and entry. It was possible to climb out onto the roof – and we did! This roof boasted a good crop of house leeks and a yellow ‘rockery-type’ plant.

Flushing lavatories and dressing rooms

Further along this corridor, with its window overlooking the farm yard, was a little ‘ante-room’ which led to the actual lavatory– a proper flush one. There was a built in shallow cupboard on the other wall of the corridor. There were four bedrooms – the three large ones having fireplaces. My parents’ one had three windows one looking towards the farm yard and the other two over the front. The small central room was over the hall and it was possible to climb out of the window onto the porch roof – needless to say we often did! The third bedroom over the ‘front room’ had a window looking over the front and the other to the kitchen garden. The back bedroom was over the kitchen and just had one window looking over the kitchen garden. This bedroom also had a dressing room, used for storage – it would have had the blocked up garden window in it.

Into the attics

Between the top of the stairs and the back bedroom was a short flight of steps leading to the door to the attics. There were eight small rooms up here, but they were never used or furnished during our occupancy. I think the floors were regarded as a bit unsafe. It was possible to climb out on to the roof through one of the windows.