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This is a text-only version of an article first published on Friday, 20 September 2013. Information shown on this page may no longer be current.
THE Jacobean Chastleton House was built between 1607 and 1612 by a prosperous wool merchant.
Now a National Trust property, the website describes it as 'unspoilt, with no shop or tea-room'.
So visitors are encouraged to head next door, to St Mary's Church, where volunteers put on a cafe service with tea and cake for visitors, raising up to £300 on a busy day.
The Revd Andrew Keith, vicar of Chastleton, said: "There are five villages in this parish and the teas have been an important source of income in our village.
"We have churches that are very small.
When there have been afternoons that the churches weren't able to cover other charities have paid £20 to us to allow them to run the teas, to use the equipment and so on. " Jeremy Evans, Church Warden of St Denys Church, Little Compton, has been running teas at Chastleton on Fridays for 13 years.
He said: "We have had a lot of fun and the others pull my leg enormously about a man doing the washing up.
It's always a happy occasion and the people are always very grateful to us. "
He said the funds made from the teas had helped fund £1,000 worth of work replacing their floor with tiles and repairing the church tower at the Grade 2 listed St Denys's.