Monument record 0167101000 - UNDERCROFT AT CHENIES MANOR

Dimensions - Length 8500mm, Width 5180mm.
N of house is cellar of 2 chambers probably part of earlier house (B4).
Entered through hole in ground. 1st chamber walls flint and chalk, roof pointed barrel vaulting of 7 bays. 2nd chamber walls chalk rubble. 4-bay vaulted roof. C14 or C13 (B5).
Polythene over top laid against water (B10).
Scheduled (B8).
Notes and sketch plans of MPP fieldworker's site visit (B15).
There is debate over the date of the undercroft, estimated at between the 13th to the 16th century. Originally this undercroft was entered from both the west and the east. It is probably the site of the medieval manor house. The survival and subsequent modification of the undercroft indicates that it continued in use after the Tudor rebuild of the manor house. It is likely to have lain at one end of the hall range, possibly beneath the solar. The alignment of the undercorft sugegsts that the medieval hall is likely to have been aligned north-south, on a similar alignment to the later Tudor range which still survives as a west range of the manor, and the solar probably lay at one end of this range (B17).