CHANTRY HOUSE

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 21 August 1926, Page 11

CHANTRY HOUSE

PILGRIM FATHERS 5 MEETING PLACE TO FOLLOW THE MAYFLOWER.

r jpHK Chantry House, Billerieay, the sixteenth-century residence of ■Christopher Martin, in which the Pilgrim F-atliers assembled before embarking on the Mayflower, is the- fourth of ‘Britain’s historic buildings to have been ,L;ld within the past- year or ,so for deerection in America. The first to go was Warwick Priory. Agecroft Hall and a fifteenth-century gateway from Parham Old Hali 1 , .followed.

sidered 'specially worthy of preservation.” The house is described in the report of the Royal Commission cit Historical Monuments . as being, originally one building of the central hall type, with north and south cross-wings, and si south extension. It was built probably early in the sixteenth century; but a floor had since been inserted in the .hall, and considerable modern, lions have been made. On the east front the timber framing is exposed at the,south end; the date, 1510, below the south gable, is said to have been discovered when this- was done. In the upper floor of the south wing ate two blocked two-light windows divided vertically by iron bars, and in the roof oven the central block is a gabled dormer. Inside the_ building some of the timber construction is exposed. The two blocked doorways .in the north wall of the south .cross-wing suggest- this to have keen the butterfly wing. The ground-floor room is lined Avith sixteenth-century panelling, and the two disused doors are panelled in a similar manner. A late seventeenth-century mouldedwood cornice runs round the room; and by the fireplace is a panelled cupboard of the same date, tvith a segmental head and nrchivolt, supported by fluted pilasters with moulded, caps. In the worn above is some sixteenthcentury panelling, and a late seven-teenth-century cornice and 1 , fireplace. On the same floor are two battened doors and a sixteenth-century door, with wiought-iion eock’s-head hinges.

Under the Ancient Monuments Consolidation and Amendment Act of 1913, the Commissioners fcf Works are empowered. from time to time to cause to be prepared a list of such monuments as aire reported by the Ancient Monuments Board as being monuments, the preservation of which is lof national importance, as well as such others as the commissioners think ought to be included.

To a representative of the- Observer, who called at the office, of the tvorks, it was explained that inhabited houses cannot be scheduled, and that even if Chantry House had been uninhabited, it is a question: .whether it Avould have been considered of sufficient national importance. It has been spoiled, it was pointed out, by modern alterations, very little or the original, building now being left. This- type of six-teenth-century house, moreover, is not uncommon in Essex; thWei are probably as many as two hundred in a better state of and. from the archceologic-al point iof view more valuable. The further fact that it had not been starred by the Royal Commission was regarded a.s conclusive that, from the official point of view, the Chantry House was not con-