Norman Chapel and boundary wall

This complex building comprises a Norman chapel, a medieval house, and 20th-century additions, all built from local Cotswold limestone rubble with Cotswold stone slate roofs and ashlar chimney stacks. Charles Robert Ashbee's early 20th-century additions are partly finished in roughcast render.

Layout

The building runs roughly east to west. The former Norman chapel forms the eastern range. Attached to its west end is an L-shaped 14th- to 15th-century house, with its longer arm projecting southwards. Ashbee's rectangular block sits at the west end of the medieval house, aligned with the chapel. Two parallel ranges added in 1929 extend westwards from Ashbee's block. Two projecting porches stand on the north side, adjoining the medieval house.

External Appearance

The buildings are generally two storeys of varying heights, with Ashbee's range having an additional attic storey. The earlier buildings have timber casement windows under timber or stone lintels. Ashbee's range features stone mullioned windows with stone surrounds, those on the south side having hood moulds. All windows have small rectangular leaded glazing.

The main elevation faces the garden to the south. The Norman chapel range is now two storeys. The ground floor has a central doorway with a single-order round arch retaining plain cushion capitals; the shafts are lost. The tympanum is plain. The pegged door of multiple small panels dates from Ashbee's restoration and has a large circular handle set on a raised circular metal boss with Sinhalese inlay work. Buttresses of tumbled stonework flank this doorway, one set diagonally to the wall plane. The windows are irregularly placed: a stone mullioned and transomed window on one side of the doorway, a three-light timber window on the other. Above the doorway sits a smaller three-light window set into squared stonework that leans outward from the wall plane and is tied back with iron ties. Above this is a moulded eaves string. To the right are several slit windows, and above these, set high under the eaves, a wide horizontal ten-light window with timber surrounds sits above a moulded cill course. Tall ashlar stacks stand at either end of the range, with another rising from the eaves towards the left.

The 14th- to 15th-century house adjoins this range to the left and is also two storeys but much lower. A single bay aligns with the Norman range, with one window per floor. The cross wing presents a gable southward with a single ground-floor window and a tall square gable-end stack. The cross wing has a two-storey canted bay on its inner face, added by Ashbee, with timber windows and roughcast render between, topped by a gable.

Ashbee's block adjoins this section to the left, with a gabled section facing south and continuing beyond. This block has stone mullioned windows to both storeys and an attic, and a doorway in the right-hand side of the gabled section with a bay window to the left. The single-storey 1929 extension with a large double doorway attaches to its western end.

The eastern end displays the exposed chancel arch of the Norman chapel, now glazed as a window with a semi-circular arched top. The walls have long quoins. Above is a smaller single light.

The rear elevation is less regular. To the left, the former Norman chapel has a Norman doorway similar to that in the southern elevation and set opposite it; the opening is blocked in matching rubble stonework. The first floor has two 14th- or 15th-century windows, each of two lights with cusped cinquefoil heads under hood moulds. A moulded string course runs under the eaves. Adjacent to this range on the right, a porch added in 1929 stands against the medieval house. The two-storey gabled porch has a four-centred arched doorway with hood mould and a two-light stone mullioned window with hood mould above. The doorway and window appear reused and may have come from the demolished Old Campden House, built in 1613 and destroyed by fire in the 20th century. To the right of the porch is an additional lean-to with a hipped roof. Beyond this, a small section of the medieval elevation is visible, with timber windows under timber lintels similar to those in the south elevation.

Ashbee's extension attaches to this range on the right, projecting northwards as a cross wing. The building is rendered above a high dressed-stone plinth. The inner face has multi-paned timber windows painted white with stone cills and plain hoods carried on moulded timber brackets. A part-glazed entrance door tucks neatly into the re-entrant angle. The gable end has multi-paned timber casements painted white with similar hoods on brackets. The single-storey 1929 service range extends westward from the ground floor with similar fenestration. The eastern end of Ashbee's extension has an M-shaped roof with twin gables. The ground-floor windows are painted timber matching those elsewhere. The first-floor and attic windows have stone mullions and hood moulds.

Interior

The principal rooms occupy the medieval buildings, with kitchens and additional bedrooms in Ashbee's range and further service rooms in the 1929 extensions. Arts and Crafts fittings from Ashbee's restoration survive throughout most of the house. Several bell-shaped copper pendant light fittings made by the Guild of Handicraft remain, together with damascened door furniture brought by Coomaraswamy from Ceylon and beaten metal fire hoods in the fireplaces, apparently also the Guild's work. Panelled hardwood doors serve the ground floor, with hardwood doors in traditional Cotswold style upstairs. Individually designed window catches also appear to be the Guild's work.

The north porch gives access to the hall, created from the short arm of the L-shaped medieval range. This room has a parquet floor and stone stairs rising against the western wall of the chapel range. To the east, a narrow rectangular-headed doorway with a large stone lintel and an early 20th-century panelled door leads into the ground floor of the chapel, a single open space with a parquet floor. The east end has the glazed former chancel arch with a single order to the arch; the shafts are missing from below the simple capitals. To north and south, the doorways are marked by recesses with semi-circular arched heads. A stone fireplace with a moulded four-centred arched opening sits in the north wall. Two transverse ceiling beams have chamfers and run-outs, with exposed plain ceiling joists. At the east end, the ceiling is raised above the height of the east window and coffered to north and south. It rises from a moulded cornice and is marked with moulded ribs into small squares; some rib junctions have square foliate bosses.

On the first floor, another single open space has its east end forming a study on the raised dais above the elevated ceiling section below. The room has narrow floorboards, and the ceiling comprises exposed moulded and chamfered cranked tie beams of the roof, between which are joists, ceiled with timber boards above. A deeply moulded shallow four-centred arched fireplace in the south wall contains a tapering metal fire hood from Ashbee's restoration. A cosy reading seat is built against the south wall next to the fireplace, with bookshelves and a cupboard with a moulded cornice surrounding a window, below which is a timber bench seat with a raking back. Engraved brass plaques record the Lords of the Manor and members of the Guild of Handicraft. The eastern end of the room sits on the dais, fronted by a pegged timber balustrade. The study area has a fireplace with a timber surround and overmantel above housing three glazed fields for paintings, surrounded by built-in bookcases. The northern wall has fitted cupboards with panelled timber doors, and a narrow winder stair rises to the attic space. The visible roof timbers are simple trusses with king posts, principal rafters and purlins lying on the backs of the principals.

The former house is accessed from the ground-floor hallway through a moulded pointed-arched doorway with an oak door inlaid with mahogany and mother of pearl. Beyond this door, the other two ground-floor rooms have been combined to form a large dining room with exposed chamfered ceiling beams and joists. To the south is a large fireplace with massive stone uprights and a timber bressumer containing a beaten metal fire hood. To the east is Ashbee's window bay. Further along the east wall, a second large fireplace is concealed by cupboards built within and in front of the fire opening as part of Ashbee's remodelling. These have pegged panelled doors and are flanked by reeded uprights with foliate carving above.

The first floor of this part of the house sits largely within the attic space and has exposed roof timbers. The trusses are arch-braced with curved wind braces. The roof is complicated by the L-shaped structure. The room has a stone fireplace lined with Delft tiles under a very shallow four-centred arch. The bed niche has Ashbee's bay window to one side and an original window to the other, with two small lights with cusped trefoil heads and quatrefoils above. The timber windows added by Ashbee have large and elaborate iron catches, evidently designed by the architect.

A door from the dining room leads into the stair hall of Ashbee's block. The structure has exposed beams with chamfers and run-outs, some carried on stone corbels. The stair is a plain dog-leg stair with paired stick balusters and a moulded handrail. The stair was designed for a narrow space, and Ashbee made it so the handrail and some balusters could be removed to allow furniture to be more easily moved in and out.

The ground floor has a kitchen, larder and pantry, with a patent range in the kitchen with red tile inserts; part of the former scullery has been incorporated into the kitchen area. The floor is covered in red tile. To the south, the former work room has an ashlar fire surround with moulded mantel; the remainder of the scullery and the former dark room have been incorporated into the space, extended westwards to create an artist's studio space with large rooflights. A bay window added to the south has a window seat with timber panelling below.

On the first floor, the bedrooms have similar stone fireplaces and timber window seats. The attic room has a small fireplace with a timber surround and mantel shelf on plain brackets.

Subsidiary Features

Ashbee designed an extensive garden for the house, bounded by a wall approximately two metres high constructed from rubble limestone with flat stone coping. It incorporates a gateway with a semi-circular tympanum to the roadside, north-west of the house.