Church House

Church House, Combeinteignhead

A church house probably built shortly after 1530, following a grant of land from John Bourghchyre "on which is to be built a house which must be a church house". The building is constructed of red sandstone, partly in large blocks brought to course and partly in rubblestone, with a slate roof (formerly thatched) gabled at the ends. No chimney stack currently exists. The first floor was converted to flats and the eaves were raised in 1977.

The building has a single depth rectangular plan. The ground floor consists of a large room to the left with an entrance on the front at the left, and a narrow service room at the right end with a separate entrance. The first floor was originally one large room but was altered during conversion to flats. Over its history, the building has served as a poorhouse, bakehouse, and schoolroom.

The exterior is two storeys with an asymmetrical two-window front. A stone eaves cornice runs across the facade, slightly below the eaves following the roof raising, with a second cornice or dripmould at the sill level of the first floor windows. The doorway into the main ground floor room at the left is set high in the wall and presumably originally had steps up to it. It features a fine moulded oak doorframe with carved spandrels and a plank and stud door with large strap hinges. The service room door also has steps up and a chamfered doorframe with a slightly cambered lintel. To the left of this is a fine four-light window with a moulded frame and mullions, and hollow-chamfered segmental-headed lights with carved spandrels, iron stanchions and saddle bars. The window is unglazed with modern glazing on the inner face of the wall. A smaller, plainer mullioned window to the left has two lights with chamfered frames and peaked heads, also unglazed. The first floor has two twentieth-century three-light windows with arched lights, with similar windows to each end wall.

The ground floor interior features massive chamfered cross beams with additional support at the junction with the walls. A plank and muntin screen divides the main room from the service room, with the muntins roll-moulded towards the main room.

A plaque, probably from the nineteenth century and temporarily removed, states "this building was erected and presented to the Parish as an Almshouse, by William Bourchier 3rd Earl of Bath, A.D. 1620". However, the documented grant date is after 1530.

Historical records indicate the lower floor was used as a brewery and the upper floor for meetings. From about 1810 until 1856 it functioned as an almshouse. The brewing equipment was sold off around this time and the lower floor was let as two dwellings. The upper floor was used as a schoolroom between 1789 and 1932.

Brick chimney stacks, which no longer exist, were described as restorations. The first floor fireplace in the east (rear) wall of the first floor was described as "quite modern" and the ground floor left end fireplace as "relatively small and plain segmental-headed". A modern elliptical-headed wooden doorway served as the entrance to the upper chamber in the right (south) end wall, and the timber and plaster roof was renewed.

This is an important example of a church house with high quality sixteenth-century carpentry intact.