£50,000 for a Cob Chapel, £195,000 for a Methodist One: Two Devon Chapels Go Under the Hammer

• Eastacombe Chapel near Barnstaple, Grade II listed and built in 1818, had a £50,000 guide
• The Methodist Chapel at Whiddon Down, built in 1906, had a £195,000 guide
• Both came with planning permission, for a three-bed home and two holiday lets
• Rendells handled both auctions, which closed in April 2024

Two former chapels in Devon were put up for auction in spring 2024, The Property Daily reported, offering buyers very different routes into church conversion.

Eastacombe Chapel sits in a rural hamlet about a mile from Tawstock and two miles from Barnstaple. The Grade II listed building dates from 1818 and is built of stone and cob, with a modern side extension. It has an entrance lobby with gallery stairs, arched windows, timber floors and high ceilings, plus a kitchen, two WCs and unregistered land for parking. The graveyard was excluded from the sale. Planning permission for a three-bedroom conversion was granted in 2019, but building work in 2022 caused damage to the walls, and the scaffolding was included in the sale. The guide price was £50,000, with an opening bid of £30,000, and bidding closed on April 9.

The Methodist Chapel at Whiddon Down, near Dartmoor National Park and the A30, is an unlisted stone chapel built in 1906. The listing described “a crenelated entrance hall and main chapel with leaded stained glass windows, wooden flooring and high curved ceilings”. It had planning permission to become two holiday lets, one with two bedrooms and one with six, as well as a kitchen and meeting room, cloakrooms, a boiler room and driveway parking. The guide was £195,000, with an opening bid of £190,000, and bidding closed on April 22.

Both sales were handled by Rendells.

The contrast is useful for anyone thinking of buying a church building, in the UK or at home in Jamaica. A cheap listed chapel with damaged walls may cost far more to finish than to buy, while a sound unlisted chapel with consent for holiday lets can earn an income but sells at a premium. Buyers should check what the planning permission really allows, what is excluded, such as a graveyard, and how listed status limits the work.

Follow Jamaica Homes on Youtube @jamaicahomes and Instagram @jamaica_homes and on Facebook @jamaicahomesnews Send us a message or email us at onlinefeedback@jamaica-homes.com or editor@jamaica-homes.com