The Vicarage

The Vicarage is a vicarage dating from 1853-54, designed by William Butterfield for William Henry Dawnay, the seventh Viscount Downe, and built by Charles Ward of Lincoln. It is a double-depth plan building consisting of a twin east-west range, with a two-room south range, an entrance lobby, a stairhall, and a three-room north range with a rear outshut, all set around a walled courtyard with a carriage house adjoining to the north.

The principal south garden front is two storeys high with three irregular bays. The central bay has a three-light window with a central glazed door and sidelights featuring glazing bars. A projecting bay to the right has a five-light window with 20th-century glazing in the original opening, beneath a cogged brick band. The central first floor has a three-light stair window. All windows are beneath brick soldier arches, and the building has a steeply-pitched double-span roof with three buttressed stacks featuring cornices and gabled coping.

The west entrance front has two single-bay gabled ranges, one set back, with an entrance in the angle, featuring a two-fold board door with strap hinges beneath a three-pane overlight in a chamfered wooden reveal, all under a brick soldier arch; the first floor has a cross-mullioned window. A section to the left has a four-light mullioned ground-floor window and a cross-mullioned first-floor window. All windows on the west front retain their original appearance, featuring chamfered wooden mullions, brick soldier arches, and pointed relieving arches.

The east elevation features a two-light ground-floor window with plate glass sashes, and two three-light first-floor windows with 20th-century glazing in original openings with soldier and relieving arches. Original doors and sashes, including cross-mullioned windows with glazing bars, are present on the north side, with first-floor windows beneath raised eaves. Rainwater heads bear the Downe monogram and coronet.

The coach-house has a carriage entrance to the south with a two-fold board door beneath a lintel, flanked by single board doors, the left one with a three-pane overlight; a 20th-century garage door is present in the left gable end, above which is a pointed two-fold loft door. It has a steeply-pitched roof. An adjoining brick-coped courtyard wall has timber gates between the coach-house and the house.

The interior includes an original dog-leg staircase, wooden chimney-pieces in the main east rooms with trefoiled brackets to mantelshelves, panelled doors in architraves, and a panelled dado throughout the ground floor. The vicarage is contemporary with the neighboring church and school, and similar groups at Hensall (North Yorkshire) and Cowick. It is reputed that Pollington Vicarage influenced Philip Webb when designing The Red House at Bexleyheath.