The Chantry And Elmfield

The Chantry and Elmfield is a former vicarage, now divided into two dwellings, located on Vicarage Hill in Kingsteignton. Described by the incumbent Thomas Whipham as "nearly built" in 1821, it represents a remarkable example of the cottage orné style. The Georgian Group identified it in its original form as "one of the very best examples of the cottage orné genre in the country".

The building is constructed of roughcast stone beneath a thatched roof with two gables to the entrance front. Two lateral chimneys stand on the south side with an additional stack to the central valley. A late 19th or early 20th-century service wing addition has been made at the south-east corner, and late 20th-century alterations have occurred.

The plan is approximately square with corner bows on the garden, or west, elevation. The interior is organised around a fine full-height oval stair well at the centre, topped with a dome. The ground floor contains three rooms wide by three rooms deep. A small entrance hall to the east leads into the stair well, opposite which to the west is a small sitting room. Two larger principal rooms flanking the sitting room—an oval-plan parlour to the north and dining room to the south—are entered from the stair well. Sliding doors in the north and south walls of the small sitting room permit complete circular access through the stair well and the three principal west rooms. The principal east rooms, comprising a library to the north and probably a kitchen to the south, are accessed via the entrance hall. Narrow rooms between the parlour and library and between the kitchen and dining room are of unknown original function, though the latter may have been a butler's pantry. The late 19th or early 20th-century service wing presumably relocated the kitchen and upgraded the south-east room to an additional sitting room. The subsequent division into two separate dwellings has interrupted the original circulating plan both on the ground floor and first floor, where an oval corridor combined with the stair gallery once provided access to all first-floor rooms.

The two-storey building features a fine three-bay garden elevation facing west, with a thatched verandah. The thatch of the main roof is carried around the left and right corner bows, and the verandah follows the profile of the elevation, continuing on the north and south returns. Three two-leaf glazed arched doors on the ground floor display elaborate iron tracery and stained glass. On the first floor, the eaves thatch is eyebrowed over three first-floor two-light arched windows with elaborate iron tracery. Cobbles laid in patterns beneath the verandah once supported rustic posts with struts and twisted rustic branches concealing the rafters; most posts have been replaced with squared timber uprights. The three-bay north and south elevations contain similar doors and windows, with the outer first-floor windows blocked and possibly always false. The verandah is no longer complete on the north and south sides; the south side has been partly removed to accommodate the service wing and altered to incorporate a conservatory, while the north side's easternmost bays have been filled in during the 1980s with plastic windows and doors.

The interior retains two-leaf timber Gothick arched inner doors to the entrance hall. The stairwell is splendid, featuring a cantilevered stone stair rising to a stair gallery with cast-iron Gothick balusters, paved in stone. Leading into the small sitting room off the stair well are paired oak doors from a circa early 16th-century rood screen, said to have been removed from Kingsteignton parish church; the tracery in the doors is filled with painting to imitate stained glass. Plain arched doorways lead from the stair hall into the parlour and dining room, though the dining room doorway is blocked. The small sitting room contains a 20th-century chimneypiece, possibly concealing the original, and tall timber arched sliding doors to north and south with applied Gothick mouldings; similar mouldings embellish the shutters. Original marble chimneypieces with Gothick detail survive in both the parlour (north-west) and dining room (south-west); the dining room chimneypiece is extraordinary in being positioned immediately below an original window. Both parlour and dining room retain curved panelled doors and original shutters. Some bedrooms feature especially attractive plain plaster vaulting to the windows.

The building represents an outstanding example of a large structure in the cottage orné manner, combining fine detail with a plan form derived from an 18th-century emphasis on showpiece and public rooms. Unlike an 18th-century house, the garden front with its verandah is separated from the entrance front, providing seclusion for the garden. Some interior and exterior features have been lost during late 20th-century alterations.