Chapel Cleeve Hotel, Balustrade Flanking Entrance Steps And East Wall Terminating Terrace Marked By 2 Steps Fronting Facade

Chapel Cleeve Hotel, including the balustrade flanking the entrance steps and the east wall terminating the terrace marked by two steps fronting the facade.

This building began as a pilgrim's hospice attached to a chapel, subsequently enlarged as a country house and later converted to a hotel. The core structure dates from 1452–5, with major enlargements in 1818–23 and refronting and further enlargement in 1913–14. The early 19th-century work was carried out by Richard Carver, and the early 20th-century plasterwork decoration was executed by George Percy Bankart.

The building is constructed with a squared and coursed blue lias plinth, roughcast over rubble with Bath stone quoins and dressings, a string course, and a hipped slate roof behind parapets. The gable ends have coped verges, and the stacks are roughcast.

The plan is south-facing with a gabled full-height porch. The west portion contains early 20th-century reception rooms linked by a long gallery-style corridor on the north front. The east portion comprises five bays of the early 19th-century house with an original central octagonal entrance hall and a cantilevered stair behind, while the north-east wing incorporates the remains of the medieval hostelry in an L-plan arrangement.

The façade displays Tudor styling across two storeys. The window arrangement consists of bays measuring 2:3:1:2:1:2, all with Tudor arch-headed lights in mullioned and transomed windows. The end bays on the left break forward and feature two five-light windows with gabled tops and blank panels. Other windows comprise two and three to four-light examples, with a single-storey canted end bay on the right containing two six-light windows and a gabled top to the third bay breaking forward slightly. The centre features a full-height gabled porch with a date stone of 1914 in the gable end. A two five-light oriel window has a corbelled base with a coat of arms above a four-centred arch doorway with double doors. The doorway is approached by a flight of steps with a curving Bath stone handrail. Square piers with stone latticework return to two steps that form the terrace fronting the house, positioned between the projecting end bays on the left and a low wall of similar design on the right. The north-east wing projects to the right with a setback, terminating in a crenellated polygonal stair turret; early 19th-century work also appears on this return.

The rear elevation reveals the remains of the medieval hostelry, constructed of squared and coursed blue lias with red sandstone relieving arches. This section is two storeys with a later inserted attic and features a gabled end bay on the right with coped verges. A mullioned and transomed arched window beneath a hood mould is visible, with a similar window reset as a dormer on the left; below are two cinquefoil-headed windows separated by a string course. Two arched window openings under hood moulds appear on the right with a blocked entrance beside. A long mullioned and transomed cinquefoil-headed window occupies the centre, with a small arched window beside an arched doorway on the left. A single-storey wall length to the east contains a four-centred moulded arch opening, possibly leading to a courtyard that may have been formed by a parallel gabled wing running north–south.

The interior retains three bays of arch-braced roof with remains of two tiers of wind bracing in the north-east wing. The wallplate and chamfered beams feature step and run-out stops. The early 19th-century Gothick panelling, moulded cornices, and a wrought iron cantilevered stair with elegant plasterwork decoration on the stair lantern are notable. Particularly fine Arts and Crafts-style plasterwork decoration by Bankart includes overmantels and an imported early 17th-century carved overmantel from Taunton installed in the early 20th-century west wing.

The chapel of St Mary was built to house a sacred image of the Virgin that had survived the destruction of an earlier chapel to the north on the cliffs at Blue Anchor. No trace remains of the chapel that formerly stood to the north of the hospice, which served pilgrims visiting the shrine.