From Abbot To Artist

A house built for the Abbot of Pershore in the 14th century was restored as a studio by an American artist and later became a family home. Alan Calder describes the development of this remarkable Cotswolds building

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Abbots Grange, Broadway, Worcestershire The home of Richard and Topsy Taee

TUCKED away behind high yew hedges in the very heart of the village of Broadway in the north Cotswolds is a building that predates the picturesque 17th-century houses on the celebrated High Street by nearly three centuries. Erected in about 1330, this is not only an exceptionally important example of medieval domestic architecture, but the most complete house of its date built for the private use of an abbot outside his monastery in England. Restored and enlarged in stages from the 1880s onwards, the house has subsequently undergone changes that exemplify the inventive, but sympathetic spirit of the Arts-and-Crafts Movement.

The Benedictine Abbey of Pershore claimed possession of the manor of Broadway from at least the 10th century, their ownership confirmed by royal charter in 972. A manor house must have existed there from the Anglo-Saxon period, but the present Abbots Grange is a much later building that came into being as the result of a change in the organisation of the abbey’s estates during the 12th and 13th centuries.