Membury Court

Membury Court is a late 16th-century to early 17th-century farmhouse that incorporates a medieval hall house, with 18th-century, 19th-century and later additions and alterations.

The building is constructed of rubble stone with dressings and local chert stone. Some red brick is associated with 18th-century improvements. The historic roof timbers are oak, and the roofs are covered in thatch.

The house has an L-shaped plan of two storeys, with the main range running east-west and a service wing projecting southwards from the west end, adjoined by a former stable and trap-house. The main range follows a three-room-and-cross-passage plan.

Exterior

The principal south-facing elevation of the main range has three bays with a door to the left. The central ground-floor opening (to the hall) has late 16th-century to early 17th-century ovolo-moulded stone mullions with a king mullion. The other openings have three- and four-light metal casements with glazing bars and slender timber mullions. The frames are possibly reused and of 18th-century date. The front wall was raised by about one metre in the mid-19th century.

The adjoining late 16th-century to 17th-century service wing to the left has irregular fenestration with casements and some timber mullions, and two sealed door openings. At the gable end is an adjoining stable and trap-house with opposing door openings and some 18th-century brick infill in the mainly random rubble and chert walls.

The west elevation of the service wing has irregular fenestration and a door to the left of centre. To the left of the door is a projecting semi-circular bread oven. To the left of the oven is an 18th-century to 19th-century mounting block incorporating a date stone of 1586.

The rear elevation has five bays with an 18th-century projecting central bay under a lean-to roof. To the right is a door, and the right bays have an uneven elevation including sections of coursed, dressed ashlar blocks that may be of early medieval date. The four-light kitchen window is late 16th-century to early 17th-century and has timber ovolo-moulded mullions. The kitchen chamber window above and the opening to the right have three-light timber casements. The openings to the left-hand bays have timber casements, that to the left of the lean-to having ovolo-moulded mullions.

The east flank has a large projecting stone stack with offsets. The roof to the main block has three stacks. The service wing has two stacks and the south gable is hipped.

Interior: Main Range

The through passage has a 16th-century to 17th-century plank and muntin screen to the left (lower end) with step stops, masons mitres and carpenter's marks. The rear of an inserted axial hall stack of the same period is to the right.

A door to the right of the stack leads into the former hall, which was partitioned in the 16th century to 17th century to create a parlour at the east end. The east and south (front) walls are lined with oak small-field panelling. That to the east wall is not in its original position and probably covers an original doorway through the partition. There are later doors at each end, above which are the remains of a former plank and muntin screen. Some of the panelling to the south wall, the window reveals, and around the window seat appear to be 16th-century to 17th-century and in its original position. The window has ovolo-moulded stone mullions and a king mullion with a half-engaged shaft and moulded capital. Below is an internal window seat. The fireplace in the west wall has a broad bressumer of late 20th-century date. The rear window has timber ovolo-moulded mullions, and to its left a room was built into the hall in the 18th century, partly projecting out beyond the rear wall. The room has a cupboard built into the hall stack, with a fielded panel door and shaped shelf. The 12-bay hall ceiling is late 16th-century to early 17th-century, panelled with mouldings and intersecting beams.

The parlour to the east has boxed in beams, mid-19th-century doors and a modern chimneypiece. The stairs to the first floor in the north-east corner are mid-19th century.

To the left of the through passage is the lower end of the hall, now a kitchen at ground floor level, two steps lower than the passage. The kitchen door has a 19th-century architrave applied over the 16th-century to 17th-century doorway. There is a six-petal charm on the northern jamb. The kitchen has two crossbeams, chamfered with step stops. At the east end the joists are set in the headbeam of the passage screen. The east and west walls have chamfered plank and muntin panelling with step stops. The south wall has an 18th-century pantry to the right and an iron grille above the panelling to the left, which has a blocked doorway and encloses a staircase lobby, accessed from the passage. At the west end is an inglenook with large bressumer with a low-cranked arched head and chamfer. There is a bread oven door behind left, and a small, low opening behind right, possibly a former curing chamber. The bread oven itself is converted to a bathroom and is accessed from a rear hall where the lower end is opened out into the service wing.

The newel stair is in a stone turret that rises from the staircase lobby. It has solid timber baulks for steps and at the first floor there is a Tudor arch and exposed framing. The first-floor rooms have some 17th-century and 18th-century fittings including cockshead hinges on a cupboard in the hall chamber, and other door catches, strap hinges and latches. The wall between the two principal chambers may contain a 16th-century to 17th-century frame encapsulated in 19th-century plaster. The kitchen chamber has a 19th-century fireplace in the east end wall, to the right of which is an alcove with a small oak doorway, probably a closet for a garderobe.

The medieval roof is probably of late 14th-century or early 15th-century date. Most of the front was removed when the façade was heightened in the mid-19th century. There are the remains of three medieval smoke-blackened roof trusses and a plaster cross-wall, defining a three-bay hall at least 11.8 metres long over the present passage, hall and parlour. Two open trusses survive as fragments, but the closed truss is intact. It is a jointed cruck sitting on large timber plates above ground level. The elbow joint has an unusually long scarf fixed with three face pegs and locked by a slip tenon, side-pegged above and below the rafter. A cambered collar is mortised and tenoned to the principals, which are held by a yoke at their apex. The top ends of the principals are shaped to hold a diagonally-set ridge piece. The upper part of a framed crosswall survives along with some wattle and daub infill, with the lower section replaced by the existing 16th-century to 17th-century screen. The bay to the west (above the passage and hall) retains a windbrace in the rear pitch.

The clean face at the lower end of the closed truss (with a smoke-blackened face on the hall side), along with the early exterior stonework around the kitchen, indicates a solar (chamber) above a service room at the lower end. The vestigial surviving fabric of the two open trusses indicates that they were arch-braced. The hall was probably a two-room-and cross-passage plan with a large open hall heated by an open hearth fire. There is no evidence that the hall was physically connected to the adjacent chapel, of earlier medieval date.

An additional truss to the east, which is a fragmentary remain, indicates a later medieval, single-bay extension to the hall. Evidence of a former full-height framed crosswall indicates a two-storey height for the extension. A date of circa 1450-1550 for the extension is contemporary with alterations to the chapel. In addition, there is a jointed cruck truss of 16th-century to 17th-century date in the centre of each end bay. Only the west end truss has been examined and is side-pegged with a pegged, dovetail-shaped lap-jointed collar and a pegged mortise-and-tenon joint at the apex. 16th-century to 17th-century first-floor ceilings survive over the passage chamber, the eastern bay of the kitchen chamber, and over the stair corridor.

Interior: Service Wing

The ground floor was formerly arranged as two small, unheated rooms with a two-bay heated room at the south end. The original partition walls have been moved, and an additional unheated room was added to the south end in the mid- to late 17th century. The two-bay room to the south has a chamfered crossbeam with step stops, a fireplace with dressed stone jambs and a low Tudor arch in an oak lintel, and a 16th-century to 17th-century window in the west wall with three ovolo-moulded mullions (three mullions in between have been removed). The later 17th-century room to the south has a chamfered crossbeam with scroll stops, a rustic stair with plain newels and handrails, probably of 17th-century date, and an inserted 19th-century fireplace.

The first floor has two 17th-century crosswalls. The southern crosswall includes an oak doorframe with segmental-arched head and chamfered surround that has been adapted to an internal window. The room to the north has a barrel-vaulted plaster ceiling. The roof of this wing is 20th century, although cruck posts survive on the east side.