The Chantry

The Chantry, Ilminster

Chantry and priest's house, now residential. Originally built in the mid-15th century, extended to the rear in the early 18th century, and altered around 1860. The building is constructed of roughly-coursed Moolham stone with a slate roof, stepped stone copings, and brick stacks to the gable ends with lateral stacks flanking the main door. The plan is L-shaped, with the former kitchen occupying the rear wing. The front range contains, from left to right, a buttery, screen passage, hall, and parlour. An early 18th-century rear left wing is connected by an early 18th-century two-storey stairhall and single-storey lean-to.

The exterior is two storeys with a five-window range. All front-facing windows are six-pane sashes with horns, set in smooth ashlar surrounds with rolled edges and moulded sills: five to the first floor and four to the ground floor. A small 15th-century slit window sits between the pair to the first-floor right. The 19th-century door to the left of centre features vertical Gothic-style panels with a small inserted window at the top, set within a 15th-century moulded pointed arch. Two 15th-century chimney stacks flank this door, stepped forward and offset at eaves level in two stages; the right stack has a 19th-century cream brick shaft, while the left features an octagonal stone one. The rear left wing displays 19th-century inserted segmental relieving arches to each floor, with a tripartite two-pane sash above a four-light French window. The right rear wing has 19th-century two-light casements to both floors at the rear, with an offset buttress above an internal chimney stack at the centre. A large central cross-window to the stairs is positioned at the rear of the main block.

The interior is exceptionally fine and substantially complete from the 15th century. The entrance hall, left of centre, features plank-and-muntin screens to each side with chamfered muntins having run-out stops. The first three inside the door to the right have shields and foliate squares carved out of the chamfers. The service room to the left contains a wide fireplace with a shallow pointed-arch Moolham stone lintel; although the door appears to be an 18th-century six-panel door, the back reveals it was originally planked. The hall and service room have flagstone floors. To the right lies the original hall, once open to the rafters but now ceiled in, with a large shallow-pointed-arch Moolham stone lintel to the fireplace on the front wall. The parlour to the far right has deeply-moulded beams to the quartered ceiling, now divided by a passage, with a shallow-pointed-arch Moolham stone lintel to the fireplace in the now rear-right corner against the north wall. A small stone sink of unknown date sits below two pointed-arch windows with fixed lights. The rear kitchen features four beams with stopped chamfers, a fireplace recess to the rear wall, and an early 18th-century built-in wall cupboard to the left. The staircase, running left to right along the rear wall, is early 18th-century with a closed string, swept handrail, and turned oak balusters that continue along the first-floor landing.

The first-floor room above the parlour is a chapel with a massive Moolham stone lintel to the fireplace, which has a cavity to the left said to have been a salt oven. The six-pane sash to the front wall is flanked by stone image brackets; the left bracket remains fixed in situ, the right is free-standing with traces of colour in the crevices. To its right is a piscina in a pointed-arch recess, and an embrasured slit window in the far south-east corner. The door to this room is an early 17th-century two-panel, raised and fielded type. The wall dividing this end room from the central room has exposed plank-and-muntin work on one side, with a middle rail; the muntins have run-out chamfers to the top and stopped chamfers below, where four holes forming a quatrefoil serve as a squint into what was once an open hall. The members of this wall are numbered. The first-floor centre room has early 18th-century six-panel doors with long panels to the top, an early 18th-century plain stone fireplace with a beaded edge, and a late 18th-century wooden surround with a dentilled cornice to the mantel-shelf and a cast-iron ducks'-nest hob grate. The early 18th-century doors have H or L hinges.

The main block has a collar-truss roof with cusped arch bracing and chamfered butt purlins. The right section comprises three compartments of two bays, the centre has three bays with some remaining cusped wind-braces, and the left has two bays with cusped arch braces. Compartments are divided by the plank-and-muntin screens which extend vertically through the house. The rear right wing has a 15th-century arch-brace collar-truss roof, while that to the left, of late 17th to early 18th-century date, has two bays with collar trusses, trenched purlins, and a notched apex.

The house faces St Catherine's Chantry, founded by John Wadham and built to house the tomb of Sir William Wadham, who died in 1452. The Chantry is a very fine and substantially complete example of a 15th-century Somerset chantry priest's house.