Chapel Cleeve Hotel, Balustrade Flanking Entrance Steps and East Wall Terminating Terrace Marked By 2 Steps Fronting Facade

Details

ST04SW OLD CLEEVE CP CHAPEL CLEEVE

1/66 Chapel Cleeve Hotel, balustrade flanking entrance steps and East wall terminating terrace marked by 2 steps fronting facade 22.5.69

GV II*

Remains of pilgrim's hospice attached to chapel, enlarged as country house, now hotel. 1452-5, enlarged 1818-23, refronted and enlarged 1913-4. Early C19 work by Richard Carver, early C20 plasterwork decoration by George Percy Bankart. Squared and coursed blue lias plinth, roughcast over rubble with Bath stone quoins and dressings, string course, hipped slate roof behind parapets, coped verges to gable ends, roughcast stacks. Plan: South facing, gabled full height porch with left (West) early C20 reception rooms linked by long gallery style corridor on North front, right (East) 5 bays of early C19 house with original central octagonal entrance hall, and cantilevered stair behind with "L"-plan remains of Medieval hostelry incorporated in North East wing. Tudor style. 2 storeys, 2:3:1:2:1:2 bays all Tudor arch headed lights in mullioned and transomed windows, end bays left breaking forward with 2 x 5-light windows, gabled tops with blank panels, other 2 x 3 and 4-light windows with single storey canted end bay right of 2 x 6-lights, gabled top to third bay right breaking forward slightly, centre full height gabled porch, date stone 1914 gable end, 2 x 5-light oriel, corbelled base with coat of arms above 4-centred arch dorway with double doors approached by flight of steps with curving Bath stone handrail, square piers with stone lattice work returned to 2 steps that form the terrace fronting the house between projecting end 2-bays left and low wall of similar design end right. Right return, setback projecting North East wing terminating in crenellated polygonal stair turret with other remains of early C19 work. Remains of Medieval hostelry on rear elevation: squared and coursed blue lias, red sandstone relieving arches, 2 storeys with later inserted attic, gabled end bay right, coped verges, mullioned and transomed arched window below hood mould, top of similar window reset as dormer left with 2 cinquefoil-headed windows below groundfloor separated by string course, 2 arched window openings right under hood moulds with blocked entrance beside, long mullioned and transomed cinquefoil-headed window centre with small arched window beside arched door way left. A single storey length of wall to East contains 4-centred moulded arch opening, possibly to courtyard which might have been formed by parallel gabled wing to East running North-South. Interior: 3 bays of arch braced roof with remains of 2 tiers of wind bracing, wallplate and chamfered beams with step and runout stops in North East wing; early C19 Gothick panelling, moulded cornices and wrought iron cantilevered stair with elegant plasterwork decoration on stair lantern; especially good Arts and Crafts style plasterwork decoration by Bankart including overmantels, an imported early C17 carved overmantel from Taunton in the early C20 West wing. The Chapel of St Mary was built to hold a sacred image of the Virgin that had survived the destruction of an earlier chapel to the North on the cliffs at Blue Anchor. No trace remains of the chapel which stood to the North of the hospice for pilgrims to the shrine. (Pevsner, Buildings of England, South and West Somerset, 1958 VCH Somerset, Vol 5, forthcoming; VAG Report, unpublished SRO, 1981; Photograph in NMR).

Listing NGR: ST0355542989

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

264823

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: South and West Somerset, (1958)
Dunning, R W, The Victoria History of the County of Somerset, (1985)
Vernacular Architecture Group Report in Vernacular Architecture Group Report, (1981)

End of official list entry