Chaucer's House

Chaucer's House is a house with medieval origins, largely rebuilt in the late 17th century for Nicholas Baynton M.P., refaced around 1740, and extended to the right around 1836 for the Prior family. It is constructed of coursed limestone rubble, with a gabled stone slate roof, concrete tiles to part of the rear, and Welsh slates to the early 19th century rear wing. A brick ridge stack is located to the left, and an end stack to the right. The house has an L-shaped layout, incorporating a medieval rear left wing.

The main two-storey, four-window front was re-faced around 1740, with a later 19th century addition to the right. The right-hand bay is early 19th century and features a reset mid-18th century six-panelled door within a mid-19th century raised, segmental-arched architrave. Above this door is an early 19th century six-pane sash window; to the left is a mid-18th century six-pane sash with thick glazing bars, both set into keyed and raised architraves. The three-window range to the left is mid-18th century, with raised storey bands and a parapet, housing early 19th century eight-pane sashes with keyed and raised architraves. A 19th-century round window is set within a central, blocked doorway. The rear has early 19th-century rendering, with sashes and fine French windows set in coved architraves. A rear wing, also dating from the early 19th century, has a single-storey bay added to the rear.

The rear left wing is of limestone rubble with a gabled stone slate roof and dates back to medieval times, having been truncated in the mid-19th century. The rear gable of this wing contains a reset 14th-century cusped light.

The interior features 18th and 19th century panelled doors. The 19th-century extension to the right has an early 19th century bracketed marble fireplace to the rear. The front range, of 17th-century two-unit lobby-entry plan, contains an early 19th century fireplace with paterae, and a fine mid-18th-century panelled room with a dentilled cornice and a marble fireplace on the left. A dog-leg staircase with a winder staircase is at the rear, with late 17th-century splat balusters reset in an early 19th-century frame and carved pendentives to the ground-floor archway. The roof is a four-bay butt-purlin construction with curved feet to the principal rafters on the left. A foot of a 14th/15th-century principal rafter is set into a wall within the rear left wing.

The house was known as Chaucer's House from the 16th century, following its former owner, Sir Thomas Chaucer (d.1434), a royal official and Oxfordshire M.P. It was used as a retreat for St. John’s College in the mid-16th century.