Church House

This is a late 15th- to early 16th-century church house, later altered in the mid-16th century, and now used as parish rooms. The building is constructed of large, coursed granite ashlar, with some patching using granite rubble. It sits on a gentle hillside, backing onto and terraced into the churchyard. Originally, the church house had a three-room plan, but the centre and left (south-western) rooms have since been combined. Axial and gable-end stacks, featuring granite ashlar chimney shafts, provide back-to-back fireplaces. A lobby entrance is located to the right of centre, alongside a stack, and there is also external access to the first floor. A blocked opening in the left gable wall, behind the stack, may indicate the site of a former internal staircase. Originally, the building was open to the roof and heated by an open hearth fire, with low internal screens; it was floored in the mid-16th century when fireplaces were inserted, making it now two storeys high. The front elevation has an irregular three-window arrangement, with 20th-century casements containing leaded glass. Ground-floor windows are set within 16th-century embrasures, with the central one featuring the headpiece of a two-light window with trefoil-headed lights. The main front doorway, likely original, has a granite two-centred arch with a chamfered surround and a studded oak plank door. A secondary ground-floor doorway is positioned to the left of centre. Lateral granite steps, with plain 19th-century iron railings, provide access to the main first-floor doorway, which is contained within a granite Tudor arch and has a 20th-century door. A secondary first-floor doorway is to the right. Steps also provide access from the road, set with upended cobbles and granite kerbs. The roof is gable-ended, with a good 16th-century square-headed, three-light granite mullioned window with Perpendicular tracery and a hoodmould on the right (north-eastern) gable end. The interior is largely of the mid-16th century. The centre room’s fireplace is exposed, constructed of granite ashlar with a plain, soffit-chamfered oak lintel. The left-end fireplace is blocked but larger than the others. Large, well-dimensioned ground floor crossbeams feature plain soffit chamfers. Though the partition between the centre and left rooms is no longer visible, Copeland’s records indicate a former oak plank-and-muntin screen with a shoulder-headed doorway. The first floor is open to the roof, with a roof structure originally comprising continuous five-bay true cruck trusses, now interrupted by the axial stack. The entire roof structure is smoke-blackened from the original open hearth fire.