Chappel Court

Chappel Court is a house of late 16th or early 17th-century date, substantially remodelled in the late 19th century. It stands at Kenn, and is traditionally said to have functioned as the house of the chantry priest serving the Courtenay chantry at Kenn. The name is believed to derive from the chapel of the castle in Exeter, which had four prebendaries.

The building is constructed of colourwashed rendered cob and stone, with a thatched roof. The roof is gabled at the left end, half-hipped at the front of the east wing, gabled at the rear, and gabled at the end of the west wing. Late 19th-century additions are built of red sandstone with slate or asphalt roofs. The building features a left end stack with a bread oven serving the main range, a disused rear lateral stack to the main range, a lateral stack on the east side of the east wing, a stack to the west wing, and an end stack to the 19th-century extension to the west wing.

The plan comprises a single-depth main range two rooms wide, with a front right (east) wing and rear left (west) wing. The west wing was extended with a heated service room in the late 19th century, and other service rooms were added to the rear of the main range. The details of the early plan have been partly obscured by 19th-century remodelling, but the building appears originally to have comprised a hall in the centre (possibly with a passage to the left), a parlour wing to the east with a fine first-floor chamber, a lower end room at the west end with a fine first-floor chamber above, and possibly a kitchen in the west wing. The 19th-century alterations converted the centre room to an unheated entrance hall containing the stair. Considerable re-partitioning evidently occurred, possibly when the house functioned as divided cottages.

The exterior is two storeys. The main block has a symmetrical three-bay front, with the one-window front of the east wing at the right end. A fine early 17th-century plank, cover strip and stud front door stands in the centre, with a thatched porch. A complete set of probably 19th-century three-light transomed small-pane casements appears both on the main block and on the end and inner return of the wing. The left return, including the west wing, retains one first-floor 17th-century ovolo-moulded mullioned window; other windows are 19th or 20th-century casements with glazing bars.

The surviving pre-19th-century interior features include a deeply-chamfered axial beam to the left-hand room (stops lost in wall plaster), the remains of two fine decorated plaster ceilings with single ribs and floral sprays (one to the first-floor room on the left, the other to the first-floor room in the east wing), and a good 17th-century panelled door to the east wing room. The 19th-century work is of good quality and includes a grand imperial stair in the stair hall.

The roof structure is evidently of interest and no later than the plasterwork in the east wing. In the west wing, jointed crucks are visible with lap dovetailed collars of mid to late 17th-century character.

The house holds group value with the church. Information in the owner's possession includes letters from Beatrix Cresswell concerning the origins of the house and a 19th-century photograph showing the exterior of the building exactly as it appears today.