Sabden House

Sabden House is a villa, originally a vicarage and now a private dwelling, built in 1847. It was altered in the late 20th century. The house is constructed of regularly coursed sandstone with ashlar dressings, stone chimney stacks, and a slate roof covering hipped roofs. A central light well has been enclosed.

The building is arranged in an L-shape, with an extended and raised service wing to the north. The main west-facing front has two storeys and three bays. A single-storey, flat-roofed entrance porch is centrally positioned. A six-panel door is set within a heavily moulded, semi-circular arch-headed doorway with a hoodmould, on the south wall. There's shallow arcading to the eaves and pilastered corners, with a single light window with a semi-circular arched head. Tall, two-light mullioned windows flank the porch, with semi-circular arched lights above. The first floor has two-light windows with four-over-four pane sash frames. The south elevation, facing the garden, features two canted bay windows below mullioned two-light first-floor windows. The rear elevation was extended by two bays and now has 20th-century window joinery. A pitched-roof conservatory was added to the north elevation, below the level of a large stair window.

The interior plan has been amended, with an open-plan kitchen area created in the former service wing. The main house has been little altered, featuring panelled doors, moulded architraves and skirtings, and moulded plaster cornices. A panelled, semi-circular hall arch provides access to the principal staircase, which has slender turned balusters and a scrolled, ramped handrail. Ground floor reception rooms contain good-quality hearths; the main reception room’s hearth has a bolection moulding with carved ornamentation, potentially a replacement.

Sabden House is believed to have been built in 1847 on land donated and funded by Le Gendre Nicholas Starkie for use as the parsonage house for the nearby St Nicholas’ Church. Extensions were added in the 1970s and refurbishment occurred in 1991.

The house forms a group with the Church of St Nicholas.

Sabden House is of special architectural interest as a well-preserved detached villa of 1847 with good interior detailing, forming part of a carefully designed ensemble of church and parsonage in the hamlet of Heyhouses.