Chantry

CHANTRY

A rectory, now a private house, built between 1852 and 1854 by architect William White for Canon Reginald Hobhouse. The building is constructed in stone rubble with red sandstone dressings and features steeply pitched slate roofs with gable ends.

The plan is essentially rectangular with a cross wing on the west side beneath a separate roof. Service rooms occupy the cross wing, while family and reception rooms face south and east in the main range. The house adopts a Gothic vernacular style but does not follow a traditional domestic plan, instead segregating functions with a housekeeper's room and butler's pantry on the west of the main range.

The house comprises two storeys with a basement and attic. The north elevation faces the road and contains the main entrance. Fenestration throughout features diamond leaded panes. The cross wing displays three ogee-headed lights set within two triangular tracery lights piercing the wall plane beneath a wide relieving arch, with a two-light mullioned window placed asymmetrically in the gable end above. The main range sits slightly set back, with the entrance positioned at an angle beneath a pointed sandstone arch. A decorative slate-hung water tank with a gabled roof was added above the porch in 1908. The gable over the main entrance contains a small rectangular window to the butler's pantry, a larger window, a single light with cusped head, and a stair window above in a half-gabled dormer. The entrance door, asymmetrically placed in a two-centred arch with hoodmould, is a pointed plank door with strap hinges.

The south elevation features three pointed arched openings on the ground floor of the main range, two with eight-pane sashes and a central opening with replaced French windows. A mid-20th-century open porch covers the central openings. A mid-20th-century bay window to the right replaces an elaborate original bow window, remains of which lie in the garden to the east. Above are two three-light mullioned windows, one two-light similar window, and one-light cusped window with trefoil head. Dormer windows light the attic. The crossing on the left displays a two-light mullioned window in a slate-hung asymmetrical gable end. The west elevation of the cross wing features an interesting roofline with the roof swept down over an outshut. Rainwater goods feature castellated hoppers and well-designed brackets to the gutters. A bellcote in the ridge on the west originally housed a bell, now removed.

The interior retains shutters, doors, door frames, and door furniture almost complete throughout, including moulded timber door knobs to family rooms and metal door latches to service rooms. Ground-floor reception rooms feature deep skirting boards with ovolo moulded edges. The main hall and corridor have glazed terracotta tile skirtings with moulded edges, glazed tiled floors to hall and corridors, timber floors to main reception rooms, and slate floors to service rooms.

The drawing room on the east contains an original chimney piece with a pointed moulded limestone arch, black marble shelf and brackets, and Minton tiles. The living room has a replaced well-carved granite chimney piece. The study retains a simple original limestone fireplace with a painted arch featuring hollow chamfers and pyramid stops, with a mantlepiece on moulded brackets. Service rooms on the west include a dairy, buttery, coal store, and pantry, with the dairy positioned slightly below ground for coolness. The laundry contains a large chimney piece. An internal well is covered over. The housekeeper's room on the southwest has bell holes and a simple chimney piece of Bath stone with a pointed arch, simple shutters, and a red and black tiled floor. The kitchen features a large limestone chimney piece with a partly-blocked chamfered arch with ogee stops.

The lower stage of the staircase was removed following an attack of dry rot. Upper stages retain a closed string with square balusters stopped at top and bottom, square newels also stopped with moulded finials below. The master bedroom and dressing room on the east are illuminated partly by cusped single lights. Ceiling beams feature heavy chamfers and ogee stops at their intersections. A simple Bath stone original chimney piece with a very small original chimney piece with a pointed arch exists in the dressing room. Family bedrooms have chamfered ceiling beams and original chimney pieces. Garret bedrooms retain very small original chimney pieces of Bath stone with two-centred arches.

The owner has retained fourteen working drawings by William White from his office at 1 Seymour Chambers, Adelphi, London. Canon Reginald Hobhouse, who died in 1895 and later became Archdeacon Hobhouse, was commemorated by the erection of glass in the east window of the parish church. His daughter Emily, born 1860 and died 1926, is revered in South Africa for her work in support of the Boers. She is buried in a VIP cemetery alongside Smuts and had a South African submarine named after her, along with a set of South African stamps issued in 1984.