Farmhouse At Chapel Farm Including Former Congregational Chapel

Chapel Farm is a late 16th-century farmhouse that also includes a former Congregational chapel, now combined into one property. The house features a timber frame with close-studding visible on both the front and rear, topped by a steep old red tile roof. It is a two-storey building with a five-bay, three-cell plan, facing south. The house has a continuous front jetty and a central chimney located a third of the way from the west end, which is a 17th-century red brick chimney with conjoined square shafts.

Inside, there is a winding stair to the north of the chimney, which has been renewed. The hall in the middle has an axial beam that is moulded with a double cyma. The unheated parlour at the east end features exposed framing in its walls and upper floor structure, with joists resting on a rail in the rear wall that are not jointed to the wall. The service room at the west end previously had a screen separating it from the cross-passage.

The south entrance is marked by a moulded four-centred arched doorway with carved spandrels. The front has three windows with a moulded and carved bressumer, small two-light flush casement windows on the upper floor, and larger ones on the ground floor. There is a plank door with decorative hinges and a moulded doorway with a segmental arched head leading into the hall. The house has very heavy exposed floor joists and is noted as a little altered 16th-century jettied structure of significant interest.

The former Congregational chapel is located at the east end of the house, built in 1820 as a preaching station for Wymondley Academy, as indicated by a datestone on the west wall. It was rebuilt in 1862, with another datestone on the east front. This part of the building is constructed of red brick with slate roofs, featuring grey brick pilasters, a polychrome arch, and raking cornices on the east front, along with side lean-to porches. The chapel has a main axis running north-south, with a gabled frontispiece at the entrance on the east side. It became part of the house in the 1970s.