320 Notes on Place* Visited by the Society in 1895. 



original wrought iron door hinges still exist, bnt the door is more 

 recent. The roof is original — an open one of arched rafters, resting 

 on a moulded wall-plate and a moulded timber cornice on the 

 outside under the eaves. There is a two-light pointed window in 

 the gable over the entrance, and one small square-headed loop in 

 each side wall : the one on the east being now blocked up by the 

 present fifteenth century gable, shows that originally the outside 

 wall was more recessed at this point than at present. 



In the fifteenth century the heiress of the Grascelynes, Christina, 

 married Edward Hayles, and afterwards sold the property to Walter, 

 Lord Hungerford, 1424 ; and to him may be ascribed the next 

 alterations in the house ; which, so far as now remain, were not ex- 

 tensive, — the before-mentioned gable to the right of the porch, 

 in which remains the cusped head of a two-light window, is all that 

 can with certainty be ascribed to that date, except the now desecrated 

 chapel detached from the house to the east. This is an interesting 

 specimen of a simple domestic chapel — rectangular on plan, with 

 a two-light pointed east window, a two-light square-headed window 

 in the south wall and a single-light square-headed window in the 

 north wall— all cusped ; although at various times there have been no 

 less than four different doorways there are no remains of the original 

 entrance. The roof is original, with a main couple at each end and 

 one in the centre ; each had a collar at half height, which has been 

 since cut away. There is a single purlin on each side supported 

 by curved wind-braces. The gables were finished with barge-boards, 

 and not stone coping like the house, which may indicate that the 

 original roofing material was thatch. 



The house was almost entirely re-built in its present form in the 

 reign of James I. or Charles I., and the fine old oak staircase and 

 the hall with the windows lighting both, remain unaltered. In one 

 of the rooms upstairs is the only fireplace of this date remaining. 



The house receives a very short notice from Aubrey 1 about this 

 time : — " Sheldon-Farme — Part of the possessions of the Lord 

 Hungerford's, where, in the windows, when I was a boy, were 



1 Jackson's Aubrey, p. 75. 



