An abbey grange
Charney Bassett lies in the flat clay country of the northern Vale, beside the River Ock. Its land belonged to Abingdon Abbey, one of the richest Benedictine houses in England, and in the late 13th century the abbey built a stone house here for the steward who ran its estate. The Charney Bassett local history group suggests it was probably built under Abbot Richard de Hendred (1261–89) or his successor. Despite its name, it was a grange, a farm and administrative centre, not a manor house in the medieval sense. Charney owed the abbey a set quantity of grain and fish each year, including salmon from the Ock.
The medieval building
The house is built of rough limestone rubble with a stone slate roof. Its oldest part is the south wing, which keeps a first-floor solar, the private upper room of the house, over an undercroft with massive cross-beams, with a small chapel opening off it. The chapel front has a two-light Y-traceried window and a round-headed doorway; the solar has similar windows and a pair of lancets. The solar was reached originally by an outside stair. A 17th-century wing was added, and after the house was sold in 1906 its new owner, William Price, employed the architect William Weir to convert it into a country house in the Arts and Crafts manner, adding a north wing and removing the old farm buildings.
After the abbey
At the Dissolution the abbey’s Charney property was granted to William Gorfen of Reading, whose family passed it to the Paulets; it later went to William Dunch, auditor of the Mint, and then through the Keck family. Detailed drawings of the medieval house were published in 1851 in Hudson Turner’s study of English domestic architecture, and it is recognised as a rare survival of a 13th-century solar and chapel.
A Quaker house
In 1948 Henry and Lucy Gillett, both from Quaker families, bought the house and gave it to the Religious Society of Friends, partly because of Quaker activity in the village in the movement’s early years. It has been run as a Quaker retreat and conference centre ever since, and its solar and barn are used as meeting rooms.
Visiting
Charney Manor is a working retreat and conference centre, not a museum. It is open to guests who book a stay, retreat or event. The house stands next to the church of St Peter, listed Grade I, which can be visited separately.