Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 5.djvu/416

 312 DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE OF THE mention it. The name by which it is popularly known in the neighbom'hood is the Monk's House. It is situated at Charney in the parish of Longworth, near Wantage, in Berk- shire, close to the small church or chapel of Charney, but has a private chapel of its own, though the church being older than the house, it must always have been side by side with it. This may perhaps be accounted for by the circumstance that it was a grange belonging to the abbey of Abingdon, and the occasional residence of the abbot. In those days every manor had its grange, which was often a house of considerable importance, more what we should now call a manor house than a mere farm house, which we now commonly understand by a grange. The present house consisted as usual of a hall and two transverse wings ; the front of the hall has been rebuilt and its place supplied by a modern building divided into several rooms, but the foundations and part of the back wall appear to be original; it was about 36 feet by 17. The two wings are nearly perfect, the front gables are in the same plane with the front of the hall, but they extend much farther backwards, and the south wing, which adjoins the church-yard, is length- ened still more by the addition of a chapel attached to the upper room at the east end, the principal front of the house facing the west. The place of the altar is quite distinct ; the piscina and locker remain ; the east window is of two lights quite plain, the south window a small lancet with a trefoil head, widely splayed; the roof is modern. It is separated from the larger room by a stone M'all, with only a small doorway through it, and is itself so small (12 ft. 5 in. by 9 ft. 10 in.) that it appears to have been merely a private oratory for the abbot, or the two or three monks who usually inhabited the house. The whole of the details of this chapel, and of the rest of the original work in the house, belong to the latter part of the thirteenth century, the end of the reign of Henry the Third, or the beginning of Edward the First. If any of our readers who are familiar with court-hand, will examine the chartularies or other rolls of Abingdon abbey, which are preserved some in the British Mu- seum, and others in the collection of Sir Thomas Phillips at Middle Hill, it is probable that the exact date of this building may be ascertained. The ground-floor of the south wing is di- vided into two rooms corresponding to the solar and chapel above, the larger room is 30 feet by 16, and has an original fire- place in it, the head of which is of the form so common at that