The Old House

The Old House is a house dating to the late 15th and early 16th centuries, with substantial restoration work carried out in 1883. It is constructed of red sandstone rubble with Ham stone dressings. The roof is slate, with coped verges. The original block faces south, with a stair turret projecting to the northeast. A 19th-century service wing fronts the road to the northwest, and an 18th-century brick addition extends to the east.

The fenestration is irregular, likely largely from the late 19th century, featuring Tudor arch hollow-chamfered mullions. On the ground floor, there are three-light windows to the left of the porch, and one three-light and one four-light windows to the right. The first floor has only one five-light window in a gabled projection above the hall. A two-storey gabled porch has diagonal buttresses and coped verges, a moulded string course below the gable, and original two-light Tudor arch mullions with ferramenta. The arched doorway has a moulded four-centred arch wooden doorcase and decorated spandrels, bearing the date 1480 in a 19th-century hand.

Inside, a buttery is located to the left of the stone-flagged cross passage, and a hall is to the right. The hall has a high ceiling, featuring an eight-panel moulded compartment ceiling at the dais end, and an oriel arch with decorative stone panels providing access to the 18th-century addition. Both the buttery, now the dining room, and the hall contain imported panelling; the panelling in the buttery is reputedly from The Old Rectory, Combe Florey. A small fireplace, possibly reset, is set in the north wall, with a dog-leg stair turret behind the axial passage, featuring moulded handrails and 16th-century pierced flat balusters. Above the passage is a six-panel moulded compartment ceiling. Upstairs, a barrel-vaulted room originally ran the length of the house, with a partition added over the buttery end.

The house served as the rectory for the Archdeacon of Taunton and remained church property until the mid-20th century.