Maunsel House

Local tradition asserts that Geoffrey Chaucer wrote part of The Canterbury Tales while staying at the house. Between 1648 and 1726 it was owned by the Bacon family who turned some the land, which had been part of Petherton Park, into gardens, orchards and a fish pond. It has been the family seat of the Slade baronets since 1772, when it was bought at auction for £3,000. The county surveyor Richard Carver, a pupil of Sir Jeffrey Wyattville, carried out some work in Gothic taste about 1835. The house is now used as a wedding venue and for corporate events. To enable catering for large parties a commercial kitchen was built to fit in with the architecture of the rest of the building. In 2012…

The original building consisted of an east facing hall to which a three bay addition was made in the 15th century. The left and right hand blocks were added in the 16th and 18th centuries respectively. It is stone built with fishscale tile roofs.