The Guildhall

The Guildhall, Finchingfield

A timber-framed building dating from around 1500 and altered in the 18th century, now serving as a parish room, library, and four flats. The structure is plastered and roofed with handmade red clay tiles.

The building comprises eight bays aligned northeast to southwest, with jetties on both long sides. The bays vary in length, with the shortest at the southwest end (originally a shop, now the stair to the parish room) and the second bay from the northeast end probably originally serving as entrance and stair. The second bay from the southwest forms a covered footway to the churchyard, with the library bay to the northeast and the parish room above these two bays. The remaining five bays have been converted to four flats, incorporating two 18th or 19th-century axial stacks. The building stands two storeys high.

The northwest elevation facing Church Hill displays an eight-window range of 18th-century casements of two or three lights, all restored to varying degrees. The brick base wall has been rebuilt. The jetty shows exposed beams (two of which are modern restorations) and joists with four original plain brackets; the left corner has been cut back to reduce vehicle damage, and the right bay's jetty is underbuilt. A full set of original sprockets remains visible.

The southeast elevation to the churchyard contains six similar windows on the ground floor and seven similar windows with five smaller reproductions on the first floor. Five plain boarded doors are present, two of which stand forward with lean-to roofs serving as entrances to the upper flats. This elevation's jetty on the left bay is underbuilt. Exposed beams and joists (including modern restorations) and ten plain brackets are visible, some being reproductions, with some original sprockets remaining. The footway through the building features original arched braces on the Church Hill side with some modern reinforcement timbers, and on the southwest side an old (though not original) post inscribed with "ET" and "84" and carved with scrolls. Both sides of the footway have weatherboarded dados, one board inscribed "1798".

The southwest end bay contains a chamfered axial beam with plain stops and plain joists of horizontal section jointed with unrefined soffit tenons. Wall framing indicates two former shop windows to the footway, and the first floor shows square mortices for missing moulded mullions and grooves for sliding shutters facing the churchyard. The library contains heavy studding with curved tension bracing trenched to the inside, indicating no original apertures to the footway, a similar beam and joists, and a rebate for hinged shutters facing Church Hill. The parish room features jowled posts, cambered tiebeams with short solid hanging knees, square crownposts chamfered with plain stops, curved down braces, and thin axial braces, with an apparently complete original roof. Edge-halved and bridled scarfs are present in the wallplates, and some original rebated floorboards survive. The remaining five bays have not been examined internally but are reported to be fully plastered.

Historical Context

The Trinity Guild of Finchingfield is documented in the Chantry Certificates of 1548. All guild lands were granted by the Crown to William and John Myldemay, gentlemen, on 17 January 1549. In 1630, Robert Kempe of Spains Hall gave to the poor of the parish "a messuage at the church gate called Guildhall". The will of Sir Robert Kempe in 1658 endowed it as a school and almshouses: "the upper room and a little chamber adjoining and one small room or shop under the small chamber" formed the school and lodging for the schoolmaster, with the remainder providing almshouses for five poor parishioners. This suggests the five northeast bays formed the five dwellings (though not one per bay, as lengths vary considerably), whilst the three southwest bays formed the school and schoolmaster's lodging.

The present use and arrangement differ little from this original allocation, except that the five northeast bays have been reorganised to form four flats still occupied by aged parishioners. The building is of exceptional importance both for its prominent position at the churchyard entrance and for its historical continuity of use.