The Priest's House, Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire

Summary

A priest’s house for the priest of the Church of St Catherine, built 1935, by Frederick Landseer Maur Griggs (1876-1938) and Guy Pemberton (1884-1959).

Description

A priest’s house in Cotswold Arts and Crafts style, for the priest of the Church of St Catherine, built in 1935, by Frederick Landseer Maur Griggs (1876-1938) and Guy Pemberton (1884-1959).

MATERIALS: Cotswold limestone with limestone roof tiles.

PLAN: The house is broadly rectangular on plan, orientated SW-NE, with a cross wing to the NW side projecting to front and rear, and a projecting wing to the rear at the NW corner.

EXTERIOR: The building is of two storeys, built of squared and coursed limestone with limestone ashlar dressings and stacks with offsets. There are steep gables to all sides, with raised and coped verges to the roofs, which have swept valleys, the stone tiles laid in diminishing courses. The windows are leaded with stone or timber mullions, under stone or timber lintels. The main elevation, to the SE, is of three unequal bays, those to left and right with gables, the wider cross-wing to the right projecting forward. The windows are all stone-mullioned, of two, four, five and six lights, under raking drip moulds. The entrance doorway has moulded edges, and houses a ledged and braced plank door with elaborate wrought-iron strap hinges. The gables have chamfered ventilators. The inner wall of the cross wing includes a relief carving of the Angel Gabriel by the sculptor Eric Gill, across two stones. The figure, shown in profile, gestures to the legend AVE GRATIA PLENA, in a scroll. The right return is irregular, with a wide gabled bay towards the rear, which has five-light timber-mullioned windows to both floors, and smaller windows to the left. To the rear, the cross-wing projects, with an external timber staircase rising to a door in the first floor, formerly used as a schoolroom. Beneath this are the boiler house and coal house, all three rooms with plain plank doors. The central bay has timber-mullioned leaded windows to both floors. The right hand bay projects; the ground floor has a replacement timber casement window and the original mesh window to the pantry inside. The return to the SW side mirrors that to the NE, with similar fenestration.

INTERIOR: Internally, the windows all have scrolling wrought-iron catches; the doors are two-panelled. Floors are parquet. The ground floor has a central entrance hall flanked by the principal rooms, with the bathroom, kitchen and former scullery towards the rear. The principal rooms have modestly moulded picture rails, and distinctive stone fireplaces, with large, plain stone surrounds in ashlar slabs, moulded openings and integrally-moulded mantelshelves. Each is subtly different. The stair is closed-string with turned balusters and plain, square-section newel posts with moulded tops, enclosed below by panelling matching the doors. The kitchen to the rear retains its picture rail and contemporary cast-iron and tile-fronted range, under a high timber surround with moulded brackets. The former kitchen also retains its original integral cupboards and drawers to the right of the chimney breast. The former scullery has a quarry tile floor. The first floor has a galleried landing with picture rails and skirting boards matching those in the ground floor. There is a built-in linen closet with doors matching those in the kitchen. The main bedrooms have fireplaces which are smaller versions of the examples on the ground floor, and picture rails.

History

The Priest’s House was built in 1935 to house the priest of the Roman Catholic Church of St Catherine, to which it stands adjacent. The church had been built in 1891, and until the advent of the new Priest’s House, a mid-C19 building on the Lower High Street, close to the church, had been used as a presbytery.

The new Priest’s House was designed by Frederick Landseer Maur Griggs (1876-1938) and Guy Pemberton (1884-1959). Griggs was a significant etcher, illustrator, architect and early conservationist, who settled in Chipping Campden in the early years of the C20, and became an important figure in the conservation of the historic town. He was closely involved in the Arts and Crafts movement, drawing on Cotswold vernacular building traditions. Pemberton also came from an Arts and Crafts tradition, working with Cotswolds architect Sir Guy Dawber. The Priest’s House was built in a late Arts and Crafts style reflecting both architects’ deep understanding of building in Gloucestershire. The house is reputed to incorporate stone from the C17 Angel Inn at Broad Campden, which was demolished around the same time, by Lord Gainsborough, lord of the manor of Chipping Campden. In 1937 a carved relief panel of the Angel Gabriel was added to the main elevation of the house. It was made by the renowned sculptor Eric Gill (1882-1940). The Priest’s House has been little altered since, despite some basic modernisation of the service areas.

Reasons for Listing

The Priest’s House associated with the Roman Catholic Church of St Catherine, built in 1935 to designs by Frederick Landseer Maur Griggs and Guy Pemberton, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Architectural interest: the building is a good Cotswold Arts and Crafts design, incorporating traditional Cotswold building features and materials, by architects recognised for their work in this style;
* Degree of survival: the building is almost entirely unaltered since its completion, and retains all of its simple but bespoke interior fixtures, such as stone fireplaces;
* Artistic interest: the building includes a relief carving of the Angel Gabriel with a scroll inscribed AVE GRATIA PLENA, by the sculptor Eric Gill;
* Group value: with the Church of St Catherine, just to the S, and the attached St Catherine’s School, both listed at Grade II.

External Links

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