The Monk's Retreat Inn

The Monk's Retreat Inn

This inn at Broadhempston was originally likely to have been a church house. The building dates to the 16th century with 17th-century modifications, a wing added in the late 18th century, and considerable 20th-century alterations for use as an inn.

The structure comprises rendered rubble walls with a slate roof hipped to the left and half-hipped to the right and to the wing. There are rendered stone chimney stacks to the right gable end and a lateral one to the rear, with a tall rendered brick shaft to the left side of the front wing.

The original plan appears to have had three rooms on the ground floor with a central entrance. A two-room wing with one heated room and central entrance was added at the front of the left-hand room in the late 18th century. The plan has been much altered by 20th-century modifications, and at some stage the screen was repositioned to make the left-hand room smaller. The first floor is currently divided into two flats. A significant feature is the incorporation of a wide archway leading to the church, with a room above reached by a first floor door and external wooden steps, which appears to be integral to the building.

The two-storey asymmetrical front has a wide central wing with a two-window facade. The first floor windows are 20th-century two-light metal frame casements; the ground floor windows are probably late 19th-century two-light casements with small panes. A 19th-century four-panel door with glazed top panels sits at the centre, surmounted by a gabled porch hood. The left-hand side incorporates the wide archway to the church, with a 19th-century two-light stone mullion window with arched lights to its left. To the right of the wing is a small 20th-century two-storey addition. At the rear, a lateral chimney projects from the central section, and a first floor door is reached by 20th-century wooden steps. The archway to the right has a segmental arch with a 19th-century two-light stone mullion and transomed window with leaded panes. Inside this archway are three blocked doorways, two with chamfered and stopped lintels.

Interior features of high quality remain despite alteration. The wing contains one room with a fireplace featuring a segmental stone arch. Behind this, a room retains a good quality 16th-century beamed ceiling with two heavy cross beams chamfered with hollow step stops. The original joists survive, also chamfered with hollow step stops. The room was originally wider, as evidenced by the continuation of joists through the screen to a richly moulded beam at the opposite side where they are stopped. The plank and muntin screen has roll moulding to the muntins and the head beam above each plank. At the left-hand end is probably a blocked original doorway with a very depressed four-centred arched head, now blocked by planks with similar muntins forming a cross above and below. The rear fireplace has been entirely rebuilt. Adjoining it is a reputed blocked newel staircase, supported by the presence of a narrow 16th-century round-headed arched wooden door frame on the first floor, likely to have been a stair doorway. On the ground floor in the room now used as a cellar is a similar wider doorway, originally the front door to the building.

This was once a high-quality 16th-century building which retains several interesting features despite considerable alteration. The roof space was inaccessible at the time of survey.