Farmhouse at Chapel Farm Including Former Congregational Chapel is a Grade II* listed building in the East Hertfordshire local planning authority area, England. First listed on 31 May 1984. House, chapel. 2 related planning applications.
Farmhouse at Chapel Farm Including Former Congregational Chapel
- WRENN ID
- second-foundation-amber
- Grade
- II*
- Local Planning Authority
- East Hertfordshire
- Constituency
- North East Hertfordshire MP: Chris Hinchliff (Lab)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 31 May 1984
- Type
- House, chapel
- Address
- Farmhouse at Chapel Farm Including Former Congregational Chapel, Ardeley, SG2 7BA
- OS grid reference
- TL 325 254
- Coordinates
- 51.91203, -0.07414
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
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.
Local climate
Farmhouse at Chapel Farm Including Former Congregational Chapel sits in a drier-than-average part of the UK, with an average of 710 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 86% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 78% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 35 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 57% of listed buildings. Of these, 17 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
More on this building
Sign in or create a free account to unlock:
- No EPC on record for this property
- Sale history — 2 transactions since 1997
- Related listed building consents — 2 applications
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
Matched applications, energy data and sale records are assembled automatically and may contain errors. Flag incorrect data.
Similar buildings
The closest matches to this building from all 493,000 UK listed buildings, by architecture, period and materials.
this building 1 similar nearby listed buildings