The Old Rectory And Adjoining Balustrade

The Old Rectory, dated 1845 and designed by F. Austin of Newcastle, incorporates sections of a mid-to-late 17th-century rectory. It is now a house and two flats. The building is constructed of red brick in Flemish bond, with red sandstone dressings and a balustrade. It has a slate roof with stone ridge and gable copings. The architectural style is a vernacular Jacobean revival. The main part of the building is two storeys and comprises two bays, with a right-hand, blank gabled projecting wing to the east front. A panelled double door is set within a pointed, double hollow-chamfered surround with a hoodmould. Above the door is a stepped-headed plaque inscribed "A.D. 1845 EDWDO: MALTBY EPISCPO: THA AUSTIN RECTRE: DOMINE DIRIGE NOS." Double-chamfered mullioned-and-transomed windows are a feature, along with a left-hand canted bay window with a hipped stone slab roof. There is a dripmould between the floors, and two gabled dormers. Stepped and corniced ridge and offset external end stacks are present, with the stack on the left return bearing sculptured arms of Lord Crewe, Bishop of Durham. The two-bay left return of the wing has one gabled dormer. Similar windows are found on the north and west faces, the north face including a lean-to service staircase wing and a late 19th-century, one-storey extension to the left. The west face includes a staircase window with margin lights. Inside, the main staircase has spiral balusters, a moulded handrail, and ball finials on plain square newels. The service staircase has stick balusters and a moulded handrail. A geometric-pattern balustrade, with panelled pedestal piers, adjoins the south-east corner of the front wing. A one-storey lean-to extension to the right of the north face is not of special architectural interest.