The Abbot'S House, Muchelney Abbey

The Abbot's House at Muchelney Abbey is the lodgings of the former Benedictine Abbey, incorporating fragments of the south cloister walk and west wall of the refectory. Dating from the 14th and 15th centuries, it is built of local lias stone with Ham stone dressings and has Welsh slate roofs mostly with stepped coped gables and stone chimney stacks.

The building presents a complex plan representing the south west corner of the abbey buildings, with two to three storeys. The north elevation displays six bays of the former south cloister walk with 15th-century pointed arches, now blocked but retaining some fragments of window tracery. Two-storey height bay buttresses support the bays. To the upper level, bays 1, 3 and 4 contain two-light flat-headed traceried windows. To the west is a recessed portion with a blocked door and window, then north of the Abbot's Lodging containing the guest room, which has a moulded plinth and a chamfered segmental pointed arch in bay 1. A fragment of the west cloister survives above. The lower bays 2 and 3 have 20th-century windows, while upper bay 3 retains a two-light flat-headed 16th-century window with a square label.

The west elevation consists of two gables with a lean-to. The north gable has a plain rectangular window with iron bars below, and on the first floor a four-light 16th-century flat-headed window with label, with a matching small single-light window in the gable under a label, now blocked. The south gable contains a blocked 13th-century two-light window at its head, below which is a lean-to. A garderobe is located on the return of the north gable.

The south elevation has six bays, of which bays 1 to 3 represent several dates, while bays 4 to 6 date from around 1500. Low buttresses flank bays 1 and 2, which contain rectangular chamfered two-light windows at mezzanine level, with a chamfered pointed segmental arched doorway in the lower bay 2. Bay 3 has 16th-century two-light windows at both levels with labels. The remaining bays form a reshaped gable with a moulded plinth, angled corner, bay buttresses, string courses, and a battlemented parapet screening the former coped gable over bays 5 and 6. An ornamental stone chimney stands between bays 4 and 5. Two-light traceried windows with cinquefoil cusped heads to ogee lights, flanked by quatrefoil tracery, light the upper chambers. The upper window serves the abbot's parlour and features traceried transomes. Bay 4, although in the same style, appears to be a later addition.

The east elevation contains a two-bay return with four-centre arches below, one panelled, both now blocked. This is followed by the south wall of the cloister walk, with three bays of five-light blind tracery with traceried transomes and an eaves course.

The interior is well preserved. An entrance on the south side leads into the original kitchen, then northward into the guest room, which has an oak beam ceiling and stone fireplace with cornice and spice cupboard. A good flight of stone stairs leads to the abbot's parlour, which features a beamed ceiling and stone fireplace with panelled jambs, four quatrefoil panels to the deep lintel under a deep carved cornice, and above a blank panel crowned with two recumbent lions. The south wall displays a fine wood settle with linenfold panelling, with some early 16th-century glass fragments in the windows above. Several upper chambers survive, including some positioned over the south cloister walk, which retains fragments of vaulting and tracery. The building has a good timber truss roof of early braced collar truss form, which actually incorporates double raised crucks.

The abbey was originally established in the late 7th century, destroyed, then refounded around 950, rebuilt around 1100, and again in the late 15th century. It was a very large establishment for never more than 20 monks, who in 1335 were charged with living too well. After the Dissolution, the Abbot's lodging became a farmhouse. It passed into guardianship in 1927 and is now in the care of the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England. The building is a Scheduled Ancient Monument (Somerset County No. 41).