The Old Rectory

The Old Rectory

This Grade I listed building on the north side of Church Hill, Campsall, is a former vicarage now in private residential use. Dating from around 1400 with circa 1800 additions and further alterations in the 19th and 20th centuries, it represents a significant example of late medieval domestic architecture.

The building is constructed principally in ashlar magnesian limestone with the later additions pebble-dashed. It has a stone slate roof and rises to 2 storeys. The plan is T-shaped, comprising a medieval hall-block with an oblique cross-wing across its north end, and circa 1800 additions to the east of the hall-block.

The western entrance front features a chamfered plinth. The hall-block to the right displays a 19th-century moulded pointed doorway with a 2-light chamfered mullioned window to its left and a 19th-century cross-window to its right. Beyond this lies a lateral stack with offsets terminating at the eaves. At first-floor level, a 19th-century cross-window is flanked by blocked original window openings, with a rendered ridge stack above. The gabled wing to the left has a first-floor casement and rendered end stack; its short right return is lit by a 16-pane sash beneath a casement with glazing bars.

On the rear, the cross-wing gable to the right displays a 20th-century casement beneath a 3-light Perpendicular window with panel tracery and hollow-chamfered hoodmould with mutilated stops, with gable copings featuring an apex cross. The left return has a chamfered surround to a part-glazed door with stained-glass overlight, flanked by two 20th-century casements with glazing bars; the right-hand casement sits within a 17th-century or earlier chamfered surround. At first-floor level are two similar windows, the left one in its original opening with grotesque head-carved hoodmould stops. A brick gable to the right of centre contains a cross-window and end stack. The right return displays the hall-block gable with an enlarged ground-floor opening containing a glazed door flanked by sashes with glazing bars beneath the hoodmould of an earlier mullioned window. Above this is a large medieval window opening now containing a sash with Gothick glazing bars beneath a pointed arch and hoodmould with head-carved stops, with gable copings featuring an apex cross. An addition to the right has mock-ashlar render.

Interior

The northern ground-floor room of the hall-block retains its original studded partition with 2 ogee-headed doorways (the western one renewed), with 2 original studs surviving above. A non-original 1st floor in this room was removed around 1980 to create an open-galleried hall, from which opens to the east a first-floor doorway of circa 1400 with double-quadrant moulding and a 2-centred arch.

The hall-block roof comprises 3 bays terminating at a closed truss over the stud partition. It features arch-braced collars to principal rafters with side and collar purlins and collared common rafters, but no ridge piece. The closed northern truss has a tie beam; purlin mortices on the north face suggest the roof originally extended further.

The west wing contains a medieval shouldered-arched ground-floor doorway. The east wing includes a first-floor room, probably formerly a chapel, with an original roof similar to that of the hall-block but of 2 bays with end and central trusses having arch braces forming a continuous pointed arch.

Historical Significance

The building is notable as a late example of a first-floor hall of circa 1400, a form that had largely fallen from use by this date. The presence of a heated ground floor in the hall-block suggests domestic habitation beneath what was perhaps an assembly room of some importance. The Church of St. Mary Magdalene, situated opposite, is known to have held considerable wealth in the 13th century. In 1481, Edward IV granted the rectory to the Benedictine nunnery of Wallingwells in Nottinghamshire, which was appropriated to this purpose in 1482 by Thomas Rotherham, Archbishop of York, who ordained that the church should thereafter be served by a vicar, appointed by Cambridge University, rather than by a rector. At the Dissolution, much of the income of Wallingwells derived from Campsall.