Description

SP 1539 SW HIGH STREET
(South East side)
9/156 Woolstaplers' Hall (formerly
listed with Woolstaplers'
05/08/1960 House and Woolstaplers' Hall)

GV I

Said to be former Wool Exchange Room and Merchants' Hall, now a museum. Said to have C14 origins, surviving constructional details however largely C15. Restored by C.R.Ashbee as his home after 1904. Rubble with ashlar dressings, stone slate roofs. Gable-end to road, possibly once the solar wing of a larger house whose hall may be incorporated in Woolstaplers' House adjacent (Q.v.); narrower extensions to rear. Two storeys, inserted attic and garrets removed by Ashbee. Principal external feature is a flat-fronted oriel to upper floor of 1:4:1 lights with cut-away moulded corbelling and hipped stone roof: above is a 3-light leaded window with stone mullions and flat cornice (Ashbee) while in the gable is a further blocked opening; the gable is coped and has a pretty saddlestone with cinquefoil panel; ashlar chimney to left with moulded capping. Below the oriel is a moulded doorway by Ashbee with a heavy keystone and side-lights; evidence of former openings.
Interior: ground floor lay-out altered; on the first floor is a fine chamber with good detail including: vault in oriel; large Tudor-arched fireplace with Calf family rebus in spandrels; 3-bay open roof with 2 rows of wind-braces and irregular trusses, 2 with cranked collars and clasped purlins, the closed Eastern truss may not, as now, have been the end truss; it now has a glazed upper apex with glass (?by Paul Woodroffe) with Ashbee's rebus.
The Calf family whose house this was were prominent wool-merchants in the later middle ages. C.R.Ashbee's restoration was sensitive by the standards of the time. Ashbee (1863-1942) founded the Guild of Handicraft in Whitechapel in 1885; it was an influential part of the Arts & Crafts Movement and he moved it to Chipping Campden in 1902. Graded I partly on this account.
Now a museum of bygones.

Listing NGR: SP1525439266

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17525682

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Drawing up a Local Listed Building Consent Order: Historic England Advice Note 6
• 
  London 1: The City of London: City of London v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Period Property Manual (New Ed)
• 
  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey
• 
  For the Record
• 
  Oxfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)