Roche House And The Chestnuts

Roche House and The Chestnuts is a house dated 1696, built from ashlar with Cotswold stone roofs. It features an ashlar chimney with moulded architraves, bull-nose cills, and a moulded eaves cornice. The building has two storeys and an attic, with two gabled dormers and two early 18th-century glazing-bar sash windows. The right-hand bay has been altered, featuring a narrow single-light window on the first floor that does not align with the ground floor, which has a simple architrave and staff-mould door surround that is off-centre. There is a late 20th-century cast-iron grille to the through passage, with a date stone above it. The house is L-shaped with a cross-wing leading to a rear courtyard, and it includes mullioned windows; the gabled wing is timber-framed. Inside, there is a flagged through passage, and the ground floor east room has restored raised and fielded panelling and a bolection fireplace, which may date from the 20th century. It is said that the rear wing may have been a Quaker Meeting House, although this claim might be incorrect, possibly due to the proximity of the Masonic Lodge next door to the east.