About
The Old Manor at Norbury is a small, quiet and genuinely rare survival: a medieval manorial hall of about 1250, with a substantial fourteenth-century range attached, standing on a slope above the River Dove in a hamlet on the Derbyshire side of the Staffordshire border. It belonged to the Fitzherbert family, who held Norbury from the middle of the thirteenth century for over four hundred years, and it is one of very few buildings in the country where an early medieval domestic hall and its later replacement stand side by side and can be read against each other.
The earlier structure is a two-storey stone building of the thirteenth century, its purpose long debated by architectural historians and variously interpreted as a first-floor hall, a chamber block or a small defensible house. Attached to it is the range built in the 1300s, timber-framed above a stone base, which includes a hall with a fine traceried window of a quality that would not be out of place in a parish church. Much of the complex was altered in later centuries and part was demolished, but the medieval core survived largely because Norbury never became fashionable enough to be swept away and rebuilt.
The National Trust acquired the property in 1987 and has conserved rather than restored it, which is much of its appeal. There are no roped-off room sets, no costumed interpretation and very few objects: what you get is the fabric itself — masonry, timber, floor levels, blocked openings — explained by volunteers who know it well. Opening is genuinely limited, on Thursdays only through the summer months, and the site handles small numbers. Immediately adjacent is St Mary and St Barlok's church, which holds an outstanding collection of Fitzherbert monuments and medieval glass, and the two should be seen together.
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Plan Your Visit
⏱️ Recommended Visit Duration
💡 Visitor Tips
- Open on Thursdays only, from the first Thursday in May to the last Thursday in September — this is the single most important thing to know before setting out.
- Bring cash: the site is cash-only for non-members because there is no reliable mobile signal or wifi for card payments.
- The car park holds about eight cars and cannot take vans, minibuses or motorhomes; arriving early on a fine Thursday is sensible.
- Visit the parish church next door in the same trip — its medieval glass and Fitzherbert alabaster tombs are arguably the finer of the two attractions.
- There are no toilets, no café and no shop on site; plan refreshments around Ashbourne or a village pub.
- The building has uneven floors, worn steps and narrow doorways, and is not suitable for wheelchairs or unsteady walkers.
- Talk to the volunteer stewards rather than reading panels — the interpretation here is almost entirely verbal and unusually good.
- The approach lanes are single-track with passing places; allow more driving time than the distance suggests.
Highlights
The thirteenth-century stone range
The earlier of the two medieval buildings dates from around 1250 and is the reason architectural historians make the journey to Norbury. Two storeys of coursed stone with small original openings, it has been interpreted variously as a first-floor hall, a private chamber block attached to a lost timber hall, or a modest defensible house of the kind found along disputed borders.
No interpretation is conclusive, and the National Trust's volunteers are refreshingly willing to say so.
Standing inside it, with the thickness of the walls and the position of the surviving openings visible, is the clearest way to grasp how little we actually know.
The fourteenth-century hall and its traceried window
The range added in the 1300s contains a hall lit by a large traceried window of a refinement more usually found in parish churches than in domestic buildings of this scale. Its survival is remarkable given that the room was later subdivided and put to farm use, and the tracery gives a direct measure of the Fitzherberts' standing and ambition in the middle of the fourteenth century.
The contrast between this comparatively grand, well-lit hall and the small, dark spaces of the earlier building next door makes visible a shift in how medieval gentry expected to live, within a single site.
The Fitzherbert connection
The Fitzherberts held Norbury from the mid-thirteenth century for more than four hundred years, and the family produced figures of national consequence, including Sir Anthony Fitzherbert, the Tudor judge whose legal writings were standard texts for generations, and later members who suffered heavily for their recusant Catholicism under Elizabeth I.
The manor's failure to be rebuilt in any grand later style is partly a consequence of that Catholic loyalty and the fines and confiscations that came with it. Interpretation on site links the surviving fabric to the family's changing fortunes, which is what turns a building into a story.
Conservation rather than restoration
The National Trust has deliberately chosen to conserve the Old Manor as found rather than restore it to a chosen date, and the effect on a visit is considerable. Blocked doorways stay blocked, later farm alterations are left legible, plaster is not made good, and there are almost no furnishings. For visitors expecting a dressed historic house this can be a surprise; for anyone interested in how buildings are actually read by archaeologists it is far more informative than a period room set, because every phase of change remains visible in the walls rather than being tidied away.
Collections
The Old Manor is essentially a building rather than a collection: the National Trust holds it as an architectural document and displays very few movable objects within it. What is presented is the fabric — a stone range of about 1250 and an attached timber-framed and stone range of the fourteenth century, together with the evidence of later subdivision, agricultural reuse and partial demolition.
Interpretation is delivered largely in person by volunteer stewards, supported by a small amount of panel material covering the Fitzherbert family, the building's disputed phases and its twentieth-century conservation.
Visitors interested in objects will find them next door in the parish church, whose Fitzherbert alabaster monuments and medieval glass form an exceptional related group.
The medieval ranges
The thirteenth-century stone building and the fourteenth-century hall range, shown as conserved fabric with volunteer-led explanation of their construction phases.
Themes
Time Periods
Current Exhibitions
No current exhibitions. Please check the museum website for updates.