Crispe Almshouses And Chapel

Crispe Almshouses and Chapel is a row of eight almshouses with a central chapel, dated between 1612 and 1619, built for the Crispe family. The structure is made of ashlar with a Cotswold stone slate roof featuring coped raised verges and saddle stones, along with overhanging eaves and a convex moulded cornice. The building is single-storey on a plinth with attics in eight stone gables that are coped and topped with typical Cotswold finials. Each almshouse has one window and one door, with the plank doors arranged in four pairs. The windows are two-light casements with ovolo moulded mullions and surrounds, positioned under a continuous string course on the ground floor and beneath drip moulds in the gables. The two central windows flanking the porch have semi-circular heads.

The chapel features a single-storey projecting porch with an embattled parapet and segmental-headed door surrounds, ovolo moulded on the exterior and chamfered on the interior. Above the porch, there is a wide gable displaying two sets of Crispe armorial bearings flanked by three Corinthian-style engaged columns under an entablature and cornice. A central square clocktower is topped by a broached octagonal spire with a mushroom-shaped finial and a weathervane.

Inside the almshouses, there are stop-chamfered beams, while the chapel has a plain interior with two inward-leaning piers that support the tower. The westernmost gable is inscribed with "1612./10.DIE.AUGUSTI./THOMAS.CRISPE./FILIVS./NICHOLAV.CRISPE./POSVIT.HVNC.LAPIDEM." and the easternmost gable reads "1619./30:DIE:IVLII:/NICHOLAVS:CRISPE:/FILIVS:ELTAE:CRISPE:/POSVIT:HVNC:LAPIDEM." This building is a notable example of 17th-century vernacular almshouses and holds significant historical importance as the first structure in the village street.