190 The old Parsonage at Sherston Magna. 



sable hetiveen three naiants emhowed pro})er. Mr. Hodges, who was 

 a tenant of the Dean and Chapter of Gloucester, to whom this 

 house then belonged, appears to have made very considerable 

 alterations, the effect of which was to cut up an ancient hall of the 

 fifteenth century into two sitting-rooms and a passage on the ground 

 floor, and several bedrooms above, with the addition of a south 

 gable and other features. This work must have been carried out 

 prior to 1676, in which year Mr. Hodges had the misfortune to lose 

 his wife and his mother (a daughter of Sir William Cooke, of 

 Highnam, as described on their mural monument in the chancel of 

 Sherston Church (see appendix I.). He seems to have subsequently 

 left Sherston. 



But apart from Mr. Hodges' panelled parlour, and ignoring all the 

 comparatively modern partitions of the seventeenth century, one 

 has here the ancient rectory, which was from 1400 to 1403 the 

 home of Henry Chichele, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury and 

 the munificent founder of All Souls' College, Oxford (Appendix 2.) 



The general plan of this old rectory resembles that at Buckland, 

 in Gloucestershire, which was built by William Grafton between 

 1466 and 1511, and if no part of the present building is quite so 

 old as the time of Chichele, at least it is built on the site, and 

 doubtless with some of the materials, and in similar form, to his 

 Sherston home. 



The original house consists of a large dining-hall, open to the 

 roof, with buttery and kitchen at the east end, the kitchen projecting 

 south. A plain arch which originally was under the screens, leads 

 into the kitchen. 



The great hall measures 33ft. 4iu. in length, by an average breadth 

 of 24ft. The height to the wall plate is 14ft. 6in. and to the apex 

 about 29ft. All these measurements are internal, and the walls 

 are about 4ft. thick, but very irregular. 



One of the original windows remains on the south side, a square- 

 headed window, without any drip-mould, of two cinque-foiled arched 

 lights with plain spandrils. A moulded transom crosses the central 

 muUion at about one-third of the height of the window from its base. 



The oak-timbered roof, now much dilapidated, and partly hidden 



