St Marys House, Wing Cottage And Ivy Cottage

St Mary's House, Wing Cottage and Ivy Cottage

A former mill owner's house with attached row of weavers' houses, located off the south side of London Road in Chalford. The building has a complex construction history spanning from the late 16th century to the early 19th century.

The core structure dates to the late 16th century, with late 17th-century weavers' houses added to the rear. The principal front was re-fronted around 1720 for Samuel Peach, and substantial alterations including new wings and internal refitting were undertaken around 1820 for Samuel Clutterbuck. The building is constructed of ashlar limestone, coursed and uncoursed rubble limestone with partial roughcast rendering, featuring ashlar and artificial stone chimneys. The roofs are a mixture of concrete tile, stone, artificial stone and Welsh slate.

The main structure is three storeys tall with two-storey side wings. A two-storey rear wing with attic connects to a row of weavers' houses on the north side.

The south front comprises a central block with five-window fenestration arranged in eight, twelve and eighteen-pane sashes of various dates, set within keyed moulded architraves with bull-nosed sills. Keystones link with moulded middle and upper floor level string courses, the upper floor window keystones extending into a moulded coved eaves cornice. An open balustraded parapet crowns the centre. A central doorway features moulded architraves, a keystone and a fine shell hood on carved brackets, with double glazed doors beneath. The gable end of the central block has a central projecting chimney stack and mullioned windows, some blocked, with the east gable end retaining its coping.

The balancing two-storey wings have three-window fenestration. The west wing is roughcast rendered with all windows blocked, while the east wing retains twelve-pane sashes. Both wings have plain upper floor level bands, a moulded cornice with blocking course, and hipped roofs.

The east elevation is roughly symmetrical with five-window fenestration, mostly twelve-pane sashes except for a central upper floor tripartite sash above a central bow window. Curved glazed doors have internal curved panelled sliding shutters. The cornice and band continue from the front, though part of the elevation to the right is now only a screen wall, the building behind having been demolished.

The west side features a central upper floor tripartite sash to the wing. The rear wing has mixed fenestration including two two-light upper floor ovolo moulded mullioned casements with a linking hoodmould and a three-light chamfered mullioned casement below.

The north side contains a row of weavers' houses of approximately three different building periods. The earliest part at the west end has two four-pane sashes, while the remainder of the fenestration consists of two-light chamfered mullioned casements grouped under hoodmoulds. The house at the east end has been demolished but its facade has been retained, with the front door accessed by a bridge over the River Frome.

The interior was extensively refitted around 1820, with doorcases featuring reeded architraves and entablatures with thin cornices, and six-panel doors throughout. One room to the left of the hall retains early 18th-century bolection moulded panelling and cornice, though the fireplace is an early 19th-century replacement featuring triple clustered attached columns with foliated capitals and a reeded lintel. The staircase is of plain stick-baluster type and has an unusual configuration, with the upper part rising into a high trefoil-shaped barrel vault lit by a tall round-arched sash window. An oval skylight to part of the middle floor is decorated with a floral plaster frieze. Two rooms on the upper floor contain late 16th or early 17th-century Tudor arched doorways that do not relate to the present plan.

The central block has a five-bay roof with moulded principal rafters and cambered collars, with some arched windbracing mainly on the north side. The purlins to the south were cut through when the three-storey early 18th-century front was added. On the ground floor of the rear wing is a moulded late 16th-century timber compartment ceiling.

The site is an ancient mill location. The central part of the present house likely incorporates a large late 16th-century upper floor hall, possibly the local court house, while the rear wing probably provided steward's accommodation. By the late 17th century the building had become associated with the adjacent mill and was subsequently considerably upgraded in status. Two mill buildings known as St Mary's Mill stand to the west.