Kirkham House is a late

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

stone house in

Paignton Paignton ( ) is a seaside town on the coast of Tor Bay in Devon, England. Together with Torquay and Brixham it forms the borough of Torbay which was created in 1998. The Torbay area is a holiday destination known as the English Riviera. Paignt ...

Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devo ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. It is believed to be a 14th or 15th century building. The house was designated a Grade II*

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

on 13 March 1951.

History

There is no documentary evidence of who built Kirkham House or when. The design suggests that it is of 14th or 15th century origin, and it has been called "The Priest's House", suggesting the residence of a church official, or a priest of the Kirkham

Chantry A chantry is an ecclesiastical term that may have either of two related meanings: # a chantry service, a Christian liturgy of prayers for the dead, which historically was an obiit, or # a chantry chapel, a building on private land, or an area i ...

. The house may have been built as the residence of a prosperous local merchant. Mrs Ada Frances Jennings bequeathed the house to the nation in 1960, together with a sum of money for its repair. The stone and plasterwork have been extensively renovated, but many of the original oak beams and carvings can still be seen. The building contains reproduction furniture and

tapestries Tapestry is a form of textile art, traditionally woven by hand on a loom. Tapestry is weft-faced weaving, in which all the warp threads are hidden in the completed work, unlike most woven textiles, where both the warp and the weft threads may ...

in the medieval style.

Structure

The building is a single depth cottage with three rooms, and is made of

breccia Breccia () is a rock composed of large angular broken fragments of minerals or rocks cemented together by a fine-grained matrix. The word has its origins in the Italian language, in which it means "rubble". A breccia may have a variety of ...

with a slate roof. The ground floor of the house consists of a

parlour A parlour (or parlor) is a reception room or public space. In medieval Christian Europe, the "outer parlour" was the room where the monks or nuns conducted business with those outside the monastery and the "inner parlour" was used for necessar ...

and a large vaulted hall that would have been used for entertaining guests, while the first floor has a gallery and three bedchambers. The kitchen was an outbuilding that exists today only as a few ruined walls, and there is a small garden adjacent to the house. It also includes a cast-iron pump outside the kitchen area. File:Kirkham House, Paignton - geograph.org.uk - 622635.jpg, File:Kirkham dining.jpg, File:Kirkham House Hall.jpg, File:Kirkham House Best Chamber.jpg,

Visiting

Kirkham House is managed by

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...

, and it is open to the public at certain times of year. The building is located off Cecil Road at

Ordnance Survey Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (see ordnance and surveying), which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of 1745. There was a ...

map reference SX885610.

References

External links

{{Commons category, Kirkham House
Kirkham House at the English Heritage website
Country houses in Devon English Heritage sites in Devon Grade II* listed buildings in Devon Historic house museums in Devon Buildings and structures in Paignton

History

Structure

Visiting

See also

References

Further reading

External links