Almshouses, Chipping Campden

The almshouses line Church Street in Chipping Campden, on the way from the High Street to St James's Church. Sir Baptist Hicks built them in 1612, at a cost of £1,000, for six poor men and six poor women, and they still give homes to twelve older people. They are listed Grade I.

History

The almshouses were Hicks's gift to the town he had bought. A London silk mercer who bought the manor of Campden in the first decade of the seventeenth century, Hicks built a great house beside the church, the Market Hall in the High Street, and this row for the poor, and the listing puts all three down to the same unnamed designer. The plan of the building is an I, which tradition says was a compliment to James I.

Each dwelling began as one room up and one room down, with a shared privy outside; kitchens and bathrooms came much later. Hicks also saw to the water supply: water came by pipe from the conduit house on Westington Hill, and the old tap is still on the front wall, though it no longer works. Someone scratched the date 1625 on the north gable.

What the garden held

In 2011 volunteers from the local archaeology society dug a trench in the almshouses' garden under a professional archaeologist. They found that four centuries of household rubbish had raised the ground about a metre above the footpath, and they recovered pottery, clay pipes and butchered animal bones that show something of what the residents ate. The history society has since traced a local pipemaker named in the records.

What to look for

The front is a single composition in ashlar on a moulded plinth, two storeys under a Cotswold stone roof. Look for:

• The eight gables over the middle section, with finials, joined by a parapet
• Stone mullioned windows under a continuous moulding along the ground floor
• Six Tudor-arched doorways with lobby entrances behind them
• The heraldic panel in the centre with Hicks's arms and his motto, Nondum metam, which the history society translates as 'I have not yet reached my goal'
• The diagonal chimney stacks at the gable ends and the old water tap on the front wall

The same arms are on the Market Hall. The listing calls the row a remarkable and intact group of Jacobean almshouses.

Visiting

The almshouses are private homes, so look from the pavement and leave the residents in peace. They can be seen at any time, and the far side of Church Street gives the best view of the whole front.

Getting there

By car, park in Back Ends, where the Cotswolds National Landscape asks walkers to park, or in the Market Square car park on the High Street (GL55 6AW), which is free for the first 20 minutes and then charges from 7am to 7pm every day, by card, app or phone with no cash, and walk down Church Street, about 300m from the Market Hall. Stagecoach buses 1, 1A, 2 and 2A stop in the town between Stratford-upon-Avon and Moreton-in-Marsh station.

On foot, Chipping Campden from Broad Campden, a 3.3-mile (5.3km) loop, passes within about 75m at the church end of Church Street.

Nearby

St James's Church and the lodges of Old Campden House are at the end of the street, with Court Barn, the museum of the Arts and Crafts makers, beside them. The Eight Bells inn is a few steps away on Church Street. Back on the High Street are the Market Hall, Grevel's House and the Bantam Tea Rooms. Our guide to Chipping Campden covers the town.