TQ 66 NE COBHAM THE STREET (South side) 10/5/17 Cobham Cottage 28.08.1952 I Founded in 1362 by Sir John de Cobham as a chantry for 5 priests. Surrendered to the Crown in 1539. Refounded as almshouses by the will of a later Lord Cobham and completed in 1598. The original building may have been designed by Henry Yvele. Now contains the almshouses and forms a quadrang of 2 storeys with a hall occupying the south side. The remaining sides are of coursed stone on inner and outer faces, but the Hall is faced in flint. The chimneys are of brick, 2 being modern. The roofs are tiled and gabled. The hall has 3 windows facing the quadrangle the other sides have 5 each. Windows are casements with stone mullions. The Hall has 2 outer windows in Perpendicular style. Door openings are arched on the doors in stone with brass plates naming the parish electing each pensioner. A timber porch with a now slanting tiled roof gives access to east end of the Hall from the south and to the undercroft. The Hall internally has a hooded stone fireplace of 1598 and a fine C14 timber roof. In stone the undercroft is a square pillar supporting the original central hearth. The College is separated from the parish church by an open processional passageway with ruined arch at each end and the college buildings were once connected with the chancel. To the south are the remains of a building believed to have been a kitchen. In the centre of the south side of the quadrangle is a pump beneath a tablet recording its installation by the Countess of Darnley in 1824. A round-headed stone archway in the ruined building to the south has a tablet above it recording the refounding of the college as almshouses in the late C16. Listing NGR: TQ6700468398