The Chantry House, also known as the Chantry Priests' (or Priest's) House and formerly the Old School House, is a

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

half-timbered Timber framing () and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy Beam (structure), timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and Woodworking joints, joined timbers with joints secure ...

or "black-and-white" house, dating from around 1527, in Bunbury,

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Merseyside to the north-west, Greater Manchester to the north-east, Derbyshire to the east, Staffordshire to the south-east, and Shrop ...

, England. It was originally associated with the

chantry A chantry is an ecclesiastical term that may have either of two related meanings: # a chantry service, a set of Christian liturgical celebrations for the dead (made up of the Requiem Mass and the Office of the Dead), or # a chantry chapel, a b ...

chapel in the nearby parish church of St Boniface, founded by Sir Ralph Egerton. After the chantry's dissolution, it became associated with Thomas Aldersey's grammar school. The Chantry House is an early surviving example of a residential timber-framed building in Cheshire, with many typically medieval features. It is listed at grade II* for "the quality of framing throughout."

History

Sir Ralph Egerton (also Raufe or Rafe; before 1476–1528) – standard bearer to

Henry VIII Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is known for his Wives of Henry VIII, six marriages and his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. ...

, who awarded him the nearby manor of Ridley – commissioned a

chapel to be added to St Boniface's Church in Bunbury. The chantry (known as the Ridley Chapel) was begun by 1527, but remained incomplete at Egerton's death in 1528, and was finished under the provisions of his will.Hartwell ''et al''. 2011, pp. 191–95Cheshire Federation of Women's Institutes 1990, pp. 44–45 The Chantry House was built at the same time to house two chantry priests, who were "to pray for his Soul, his Father and Mother's Soul, with all other Souls of his kin, and all Christian Souls forever."Collins 1741, pp. 596–97 According to Egerton's will, the Chantry House was to be constructed with stone and roofed in Welsh slate, and was to have two rooms, a parlour and a buttery–kitchen. The chantry was endowed with mills at

Nantwich Nantwich ( ) is a market town and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East in Cheshire, England. It has among the highest concentrations of listed buildings in England, with notably good examples of Tudor and Georgian architecture ...

and a salt house. After

Edward VI Edward VI (12 October 1537 – 6 July 1553) was King of England and King of Ireland, Ireland from 28 January 1547 until his death in 1553. He was crowned on 20 February 1547 at the age of nine. The only surviving son of Henry VIII by his thi ...

dissolved the chantries in 1547,Beck 1969, pp. 22, 105 the Chantry House was granted by the crown to Thomas Bromley of

in 1549. The chantry's value at the time of its dissolution was estimated to be £12 2

shilling The shilling is a historical coin, and the name of a unit of modern currency, currencies formerly used in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, other British Commonwealth countries and Ireland, where they were generally equivalent to 1 ...

s. The property was subsequently acquired by Thomas Aldersey (1521/2–98), a successful London merchant and

haberdasher __NOTOC__ In British English, a haberdasher is a business or person who sells small articles for sewing, dressmaking and knitting, such as buttons, ribbons, and zippers; in the United States, the term refers instead to a men's clothing st ...

who had been born and educated in Bunbury, possibly at the Chantry House, and whose family had a house in the adjacent parish of Spurstow. In 1575 he founded a school in Bunbury, which was incorporated as a free grammar school on 2 January 1594, under the name "The Free Grammar School of Thomas Aldersey in Bunbury". Aldersey gave the grammar school to the

Worshipful Company of Haberdashers The Worshipful Company of Haberdashers, one of the Great Twelve City Livery Companies, is an ancient merchant guild of London associated with the silk and velvet trades. History and functions The Haberdashers' Company received its first ro ...

, of which he was a prominent member. It was the first school that the Company of Haberdashers administered. Among the school's endowments was the 2000-year lease to its governors, dated 31 March 1595, of the Chantry House, together with other land and properties in Bunbury, for "the rent of a red rose".His Majesty's Commissioners on Charitable Foundations 1828, pp. 47–48 The school either used the Chantry House as its school house or was built adjacent to it, with the Chantry House being used as the schoolmaster's house and to house boarders. The grammar school moved to a new building on School Lane in 1874, and is now Bunbury Aldersey School. The Chantry House was restored and extended in the 1970s by Cecil F. Wright. It is now a private residence.

Description

The Chantry House is located at on Wyche Road in Bunbury, Cheshire, immediately south of St Boniface's Church. It is listed at grade II*, a grade which recognises "particularly important buildings of more than special interest." It was formerly known as the Old School House.Pevsner & Hubbard 1971, p. 121 Earthworks, possibly representing foundations of formerly associated buildings, lie to the east of the existing building. The original three-bay, two-storey,

timber-framed Timber framing () and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy Beam (structure), timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and Woodworking joints, joined timbers with joints secure ...

house rests on a

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

plinth A pedestal or plinth is a support at the bottom of a statue, vase, column, or certain altars. Smaller pedestals, especially if round in shape, may be called socles. In civil engineering, it is also called ''basement''. The minimum height o ...

, with a

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous, metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade, regional metamorphism. It is the finest-grained foliated metamorphic ro ...

roof. The introduction of an upper storey is a late-medieval feature in Cheshire buildings. The windows are not original; they have

mullion A mullion is a vertical element that forms a division between units of a window or screen, or is used decoratively. It is also often used as a division between double doors. When dividing adjacent window units its primary purpose is a rigid sup ...

s and transoms, and contain leaded glass. An additional wing to the south was added in the 1970s. The timber frame is close studded, with the vertical timbers placed particularly close together. The east face has a

jettied Jettying (jetty, jutty, from Old French ''getee, jette'') is a building technique used in medieval timber framing, timber-frame buildings in which an upper floor projects beyond the dimensions of the floor below. This has the advantage of incr ...

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

. The intervening panels are plastered.Horizontal rails are absent from the exterior frame, except as needed to frame windows. This is typical of

timber framing. Unusually, two different types of bracing are present. Curved tension braces, starting from the horizontal ground sill, are found on the ground floor; these are rare in Cheshire, being more commonly found in south-east England.McKenna 1994, pp. 7, 15 The first floor features arch braces, which start from vertical timbers and go up to meet the

wall plate A plate or wall plate is a horizontal, structural, load-bearing member in wooden building framing. Timber framing A plate in timber framing is "A piece of Timber upon which some considerable weight is framed...Hence Ground-Plate...Window-plat ...

; these are typical of the Midlands variety of timber framing. Both forms of brace are large. In later close-studded or decorative-framed buildings these braces were typically concealed or omitted.McKenna 1994, pp. 6–7, 16–17 The Chantry House is an early surviving example of a residential timber-framed building in Cheshire. Its framing is similar to that of Gawsworth Old Rectory, a 15th-century Cheshire house also built to accommodate a priest, which combines close studding with arch bracing, but lacks the Chantry House's tension braces. Both Cheshire buildings include more horizontal timbers than comparable buildings in the south east, such as the

Guildhall A guildhall, also known as a guild hall or guild house, is a historical building originally used for tax collecting by municipalities or merchants in Europe, with many surviving today in Great Britain and the Low Countries. These buildings commo ...

and Wool Hall of

Lavenham Lavenham is a village, civil parish and Wards and electoral divisions of the United Kingdom, electoral ward in the Babergh District, Babergh district, in the county of Suffolk, England. It is noted for its Lavenham Guildhall, Guildhall, Little ...

Suffolk Suffolk ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Norfolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Essex to the south, and Cambridgeshire to the west. Ipswich is the largest settlement and the county ...

, which Cheshire buildings expert Laurie McKenna considers might indicate the beginning of the development of a distinct Midlands style of timber framing. The timber frame to the interior includes a horizontal middle rail. The beams are deeply

bevel A bevelled edge (UK) or beveled edge (US) is an edge of a structure that is not perpendicular to the faces of the piece. The words bevel and chamfer overlap in usage; in general usage, they are often interchanged, while in technical usage, they ...

led and the bevelled

joist A joist is a horizontal structural member used in Framing (construction), framing to span an open space, often between Beam (structure), beams that subsequently transfer loads to vertical members. When incorporated into a floor framing system, joi ...

s resemble planks, both features typical of medieval timbering.McKenna 1994, pp. 9, 11 There are four Tudor-arched fireplaces in stone, surmounted by very large

lintel A lintel or lintol is a type of beam (a horizontal structural element) that spans openings such as portals, doors, windows and fireplaces. It can be a decorative architectural element, or a combined ornamented/structural item. In the case ...

s. On the first floor, part of the original oak

panelling Panelling (or paneling in the United States) is a millwork wall covering constructed from rigid or semi-rigid components. These are traditionally interlocking wood, but could be plastic or other materials. Panelling was developed in antiquity ...

has survived, and includes internal doors, one of which has retained its original hinges.

Notes and references

Notes References Sources *Joan Beck. ''Tudor Cheshire'', ''A History of Cheshire'' Vol. 7 (J. J. Bagley, ed.) (The Cheshire Community Council; 1969) *Cheshire Federation of Women's Institutes. ''The Cheshire Village Book'' (Countryside Books and CFWI; 1990) () * Arthur Collins.
The Peerage of England
' (W. Strahan, J. F and C. Rivington; 1741) * James Hall.
A History of the Town and Parish of Nantwich, or Wich-Malbank, in the County Palatine of Chester
' (1883) *Clare Hartwell, Matthew Hyde, Edward Hubbard,

Nikolaus Pevsner Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (195 ...

. ''The Buildings of England: Cheshire'' (

Yale University Press Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day and Clarence Day, grandsons of Benjamin Day, and became a department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and ope ...

; 2011) () *His Majesty's Commissioners on Charitable Foundations.
An Account of Public Charities in England and Wales
' (W. Simpkin and R. Marshall; 1828) *Laurie McKenna. ''Timber Framed Buildings in Cheshire'' (Cheshire County Council; 1994) () *David Mills.
Recycling the Cycle: The City of Chester and Its Whitsun Plays
' (University of Toronto Press; 1998) () *

, Edward Hubbard. ''The Buildings of England: Cheshire'' (

Penguin Books Penguin Books Limited is a Germany, German-owned English publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers the Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the ...

; 1971) () {{coord, 53.11703, -2.64637, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title, format=dms Grade II* listed buildings in Cheshire Grade II* listed educational buildings Grade II* listed houses Houses in Cheshire Timber framed buildings in Cheshire Clergy houses in England Houses completed in 1527 1527 establishments in England

History

Description

See also

Notes and references