Chacombe Priory

Country House on the site of an Augustinian Priory. 16th century, incorporating medieval remains. Remodelled in the early 18th century. Built in limestone and ironstone ashlar with a stone slate roof and stone stacks. E-shaped plan, facing south, with irregular rear elevations.

The main front is 2 storeys and attic, 9 bays wide. Flanking wings, separately roofed, are 2 storeys and one bay each. A projecting 2-storey centrepiece incorporates 16th-century work and a sundial. The doorway has a square stone hood and a 19th-century ribbed plank door carved with a band of quatrefoils. Above is a 3-light first-floor window with stone mullions and transom under a square hood. A balustraded parapet with twisted columns at the angles is surmounted by a gable with elaborate strapwork cresting flanked by obelisks. 18th-century windows on either side of the entrance have plain stone frames and 19th-century 6-pane sashes. Similar windows with 12-pane sashes appear on the first floor. A bracketed wooden cornice, 20th-century dormers, and coped gable ends complete the front. The side wings have similar fenestration and straight parapets. A stone porch to the right has twisted columns and a balustraded parapet, said to have been built c.1910. The rear elevation has a central projection with a double hipped roof and early 18th-century wood mullioned and transomed windows. A gabled wing to the left is 19th or 20th century, and a 2-bay projection to the right is 18th century.

The interior was remodelled in the 18th and early 20th centuries. An open-well staircase dating to c.1700 has square panelled newel posts and twisted balusters. The staircase entrance from the hall is framed by wooden fluted Doric pilasters. A 16th-century stone fireplace with a 4-centred arch appears in a ground-floor room, and a similar fireplace is in a bedroom. 18th-century style plaster cornices and fireplaces in the ground-floor rooms may be replacements after a fire c.1910. Main rafters and stumps of cut tie beams exposed above the staircase are probably part of the 16th-century roof structure.

A building known as "The Chapel" adjoins the house to the right (north-east) and dates to the late 13th century. It comprises 2 gabled rectangular blocks running north to south, built in coursed limestone rubble with stone slate and slate roofs. The west wall is divided into 3 bays by buttresses and has a string course at first-floor level. A late 13th-century doorway in the right bay has a pointed chamfered arch. A 13th-century window in the centre bay has 2 trefoiled lights under a square head with a mullion in the form of an octagonal shaft with a moulded base. A small window in the left bay of the first floor, dating to c.1300, has 2 ogee lights and a square head. A doorway in the left bay of the south wall has a wood lintel and plank door; above it is a blocked 4-centred arch. A similar doorway in the north wall on the first floor is approached by stone steps. The east wall has 18th-century windows with wood lintels and wood mullions.

The interior of the Chapel is divided into 4 rooms on the ground floor by thick stone walls. Stumps of original floor joists remain, along with two complete chamfered main beams, one supported by arched timber braces springing from stone corbels. A 13th-century trefoil-headed recess and shelf in the wall facing the south entrance are possibly from a former piscina. A similar mutilated recess appears in the north room. The walls of the first floor are partly rebuilt in brick with pigeon holes. The roof timbers are 19th or 20th century. An Augustinian Priory was founded here in the mid-12th century. It was dissolved in 1536, and c.1542 the site was acquired by Michael Fox. The site is bounded to the south and east by a broad water-filled ditch.