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© Mr David Penny

IoE Number: 271105
Location: ALMSHOUSES,
  STAPLE FITZPAINE, TAUNTON DEANE, SOMERSET
Photographer: Mr David Penny
Date Photographed: 05 September 2002
Date listed: 25 February 1955
Date of last amendment: 25 February 1955
Grade II*

ST21NESTAPLE FITZPAINE CPSTAPLE FITZPAINE VILLAGE11/166Almshouses

ST21NE STAPLE FITZPAINE CP STAPLE FITZPAINE VILLAGE 11/166 Almshouses 25.2.55 GV II* Almshouse. Dated 1643, restored 1970 when altered internally and new windows in similar style to front inserted on rear elevation. Donated by Sir William Portman, restored by Mr Clementoy. Squared and coursed blue lias, rendered rear elevation, Ham stone dressings, slate roofs, coped verges, gable ends and between first and second bays left and right. Plan: formerly 4 rooms on each floor opening off corridor along rear elevation, dogleg stairs at either end, now four 2-room flats, 2 on each floor, central stair inserted in entrance hall. One and a half storeys, 4 bays, all 3-light hollow chamfered stone mullioned windows on facade, in upper storey rising from eaves set in gabled dormers with coped verges and hood moulds, string course with ground floor windows set below, 2 either side of central door with plaque above 'Founded by Sir William Portman 1643, Restored 1973', C19 door with decorative hinges, coeval lean-to on right return, reroofed and extended with string course continued, square headed doorway with chamfered architrave and stops, C17 door; lean-to on left return rebuilt. Three gabled dormers on rear elevation looking towards churchyard of St Peters Church (qv). Interior not sighted, said to contain original post and panel partitions and roof trusses. The alms houses was originally founded to provide shelter for '6 poor people'. (Photograph in NMR Almshouse Gazette No 75, 1970; Sixsmith, Staple Fitzpaine and the Forest of Neroche, 1958).