Church House

Church House is a building with origins in the 13th century, significantly remodelled around 1600, with later additions from the late 18th century, the mid-19th century, and the mid-20th century. It began as a chapel and is now a house. The construction is a mixture of part coursed limestone rubble with ashlar dressings, part timber-framed with roughcast infill, painted brick additions, and a thatched roof. It has three bays aligned north-east to south-west, with an external roughcast rubble chimney and a brick stack at the south-west end.

The south-east front has a 20th-century canted hipped-roofed bay window in the left bay and two 20th-century three-light leaded casements with plank weatherings in the right bay. The first floor has a 19th-century oriel window, a four-light leaded casement, and a three-light casement. A 20th-century gabled timber porch with an ashlar base and a partly glazed door occupies the central entrance. A 13th-century window at the north-east end of the ground floor features a pair of cusped lancets, with a pointed-lobed quatrefoil between them. This window is constructed with a semi-circular head carved from a single stone block, along with a chamfered mullion and sill. A further 13th-century cusped lancet is present at the eastern end of the rear wall. Behind the central bay is an 18th-century two-storey kitchen wing with a brick ridge end stack.

Inside, the chapel originally occupied the north-east bay. Walls at this end are approximately 2 feet 4 inches thick, with deeply splayed windows. The two-light window has holes in the mullion, likely for shutter bolts. The main ground floor rooms contain 17th-century ogee stop-chamfered main ceiling beams and joists. A lateral arch-braced chamfered ceiling beam subdivides the central ground floor room. A large fireplace is located at the south-west end, incorporating a bread oven and a narrow 17th-century brick lining on the sides, with a similar fireplace in the 18th-century kitchen wing. Floors are predominantly flagstone, with the central bay potentially containing reused ledger slabs. A niche in the south-east wall, possibly a reset basin or piscina with a blocked central drainage hole, is noted, as is a Jacobean settle with baluster legs set into a recess on the north-east side.

Local tradition suggests the chapel was built by Thomas of Evesham, also responsible for the construction of the parish church of St Mary around 1328, when he settled in Sedgeberrow.