The Old Vicarage

The Old Vicarage is a house with a complex history, largely dating from the 17th century, but with a core that may be medieval, and a right bay from the 15th century. Constructed mainly of squared stone with a Welsh slate roof, the building has a roughly L-shaped layout.

The front facade, likely dating from the early to mid-17th century, features a centrally positioned roundheaded doorway with moulded imposts and a keystone. There are two windows to the left and one to the right, with the ground-floor window to the left retaining its original chamfered reveals. The facade has both a moulded ground floor string course and a first floor string course. A 2-light window with cusped heads is found on the right return, and this dates from the 15th century. A projecting wing to the rear bears the date 1694, referencing Thomas Addison, above a doorway set within a square, chamfered surround topped with a flattened Tudor arch. This wing also includes a large, partially renewed chimney breast, a brick bread oven, a mullioned window, and various later windows. The rear of this wing features 18th and 20th-century sash windows set under 17th-century hood moulds. The rear of the front block was thickened in the early 19th century and incorporates 12- and 6-pane sashes, along with a 17th-century two-storey porch with a Tudor-arched doorway. A panel above the porch door commemorates John Bigge, who died in 1919. The roofs are gabled, with stone corniced end and ridge stacks, and two rebuilt stacks.

Inside, a blocked doorway, possibly late medieval, is visible in the right-hand ground floor room, with a broadly-chamfered surround, flat lintel with rounded shoulders, and drawbar tunnels, indicating it was originally an external doorway. The ground floor’s central room has a large fireplace with a flattened Tudor arch and plaster reliefs of oak leaves within the fireplace. A further large, segmental-headed fireplace is found in the former kitchen, with a nailhead on each voussoir. An early 19th-century staircase has been installed, but a stone newel from the earlier staircase remains. An upper room features a plaster frieze depicting pairs of affronted dragons, and fleurs-de-lys in the ceiling corners.

Historically, the house served as a cell of Hexham Abbey.