The Vicarage

The Vicarage is a parsonage with its core dating from the late 17th century, altered and expanded in 1861, possibly by A. Darbyshire for William Legh. It is constructed of washed and pebble-dashed rubble with stone dressings and features a Kerridge stone-slate roof with stone copings, kneelers, and a stone ridge. The building has two plastered brick stacks and follows a late 17th-century plan as a three-unit lobby entry house, which was adapted in 1861 into a double-pile house with two parallel ridges.

The front of the house is two-storey and has four bays in a Gothick style. To the right, there are canted bay windows on both storeys, featuring horned sashes without glazing bars. The left end and the third bay have six-pane sashes set in chamfered stone surrounds with hood moulds on the ground floor. In the second bay, there is a projecting, coped, gabled porch with a lancet, and the entrance to the left is framed in a chamfered stone surround with a four-panelled door behind a plain, broad, pointed arch and a Gothick fanlight.

Inside, the first-floor ceiling reveals three 15th-century cambered tie beams, carved on both sides, with heavily moulded lower halves and three flank shields above, the central ones flanked by trefoil moulding. Two moulded beams remain on the ground floor: one in the hall is ovolo moulded, while the kitchen features a chamfered beam with flat and tongue stops. The staircase, dating from around 1860, has trefoil pierced iron balusters and hexagonal newels with moulded panels on each face. There are former box pews with quatrefoil mouldings, which have been converted into landing cupboards.

Mrs. Marshall argues that the core fabric may belong to an early 16th-century chantry house. However, the carved beams have been shortened and now support a later roof truss, suggesting they were re-used from a locally significant building.