Widmere Farmhouse

This is a farmhouse incorporating an early 13th-century chapel, located in Great Marlow, Oxfordshire. The farmhouse itself is largely of the late 17th and early 18th centuries, with alterations and raising in the early 19th century, and a 20th-century extension. The whole building forms a T-shaped layout.

The farmhouse is constructed of flint with brick dressings and a first-floor band course. A raised attic storey is of brick, with its own band course and eaves. The roof is half-hipped with a slightly mansard profile and brick chimneys. The front elevation has two storeys and an attic, with three bays. The left bay has a gabled projection and a 20th-century projecting two-storey extension. The central bay features a four-pane sash window with a gauged head on the ground floor, and a four-light wooden casement above. A larger three-light wooden casement with single horizontal glazing bars is located in the right bay. A small, blocked window sits in the attic between the right bays, above the lobby entry. A top-lit flush-panelled door is set within a circa-1900 gabled porch constructed of coursed chalk and brick, with bargeboards.

The rear chapel is of chalk rubble, rendered and whitewashed, and has a tiled roof. The southeastern side has three 14th-century two-light windows, with traces of tracery, mostly blocked. The left window retains a later leaded light; the central window has a board door and access to a crypt; and the right window has a 20th-century door. A 19th-century flush-panelled door with a rectangular fanlight is located to the left, sheltered by a flat wooden cornice hood on shaped brackets. The northeastern gable features a moulded mandorla, and the arched head of a wide blocked window. Two blocked lancets are set into the northwestern side.

The chapel’s interior contains a fine crypt with vaults resting on semi-circular wall shafts and a central row of three cylindrical piers, each with small octagonal capitals. The arches supporting the vaults are segmental and double-chamfered. The upper part of the chapel has an inserted floor and roof, with coupled rafters and braced collars.