The Treasurers House

The Treasurer's House is a medieval priest's house on Church Street in Martock, built in the 13th century with extensions added in the 14th and 15th centuries, and a small wing added in the 19th century. It is constructed of ham stone coursed rubble with some ashlar work and dressings, and has double Roman clay tile roofs between stepped coped gables and brick chimney stacks. The building is arranged in a T-plan with single and two-storey sections.

The projecting wing to the west is the early 14th-century hall, with a north-west corner buttress. The west window has two lights with plate tracery and a mullion, but no label. The north and south walls each have two smaller matching windows without the crowning quatrefoil. Pointed arched doorways at the east end on each side are topped by later casement windows.

The east crosswing dates from the early 13th century and has a small early 19th-century extension to the north. The south gable contains a plate tracery window at first floor level, and below it two three-light hollow-chamfer mullioned cinquefoil cusped windows separated by a buttress, both with square labels. To the left of the upper window is a slit window surrounded by unexplained drilled holes, possibly a stairlight. The west face has a single bay of two-light chamfer-mullioned windows, the upper one traceried, without labels. The 19th-century wing has two bays with three-light horizontal-bar casements above and below two two-light windows (one retaining earlier glazing), with a doorway to the right screened by a timber weatherboarded flat-roofed porch.

In the south-east corner stands the late 15th or early 16th-century kitchen, which has no direct link to the main house. Its west elevation has a two-light chamfer-mullioned flat-headed window without label at each level, and to the left an almost triangular arched doorway.

Internally, the hall has a four-bay moulded arched collar-truss roof with three purlins on each slope; the lower and third bays are double-windbraced and the second bay is single-braced, representing a re-roofing contemporary with the kitchen. The windows have cinquefoil rere-arches, and there is no fireplace. The screen and gallery are covered in. The rear room in the crosswing has a four-panel deep moulded beam ceiling, probably dating to the 15th century, with a later fireplace inserted possibly in the late 17th century, having chamfered stone jambs and a large slightly chamfered timber crossbeam. The kitchen has a four-bay arched collar-truss roof with panels between purlins that are covered but probably windbraced like the main hall. The south bay is heavily smoke-blackened, as is the south gable wall, which contains a very wide but shallow fireplace with a near-triangular moulded arch.

Historically, the Treasurer of Wells Cathedral became rector and patron of Martock in 1227-8 (giving the house its name), and the house is first mentioned in 1226. The plot was enlarged in 1262, and the hall was apparently added in 1293-94. The building remained part of the manor of Martock Rectory until it was sold in 1840. It remained in private hands until it was bequeathed to the National Trust in 1970.