Old House And Garden Walls

House. Dated 1678. The house is built of red brick with a base of coursed rubble stone, rusticated stone quoins, stone dressings, a stone band, and a moulded stone cornice. It has a Swithland slate hipped roof with brick ridge stacks, the upper parts of which have been rebuilt. The rectangular plan incorporates a basement and 2 1/2 storeys, featuring five 2-light stone mullion and transom windows with leaded lights. The first-floor windows have moulded architraves with a frieze between the architrave and the house cornice, while the ground-floor windows have pulvinated friezes below individual cornices. A central first-floor window has pilasters and an open scrolled pediment on carved consoles, enclosing a cartouche. A central, possibly later, rectangular open stone porch leads up three stone steps. Two Tuscan columns support an entablature with a plain frieze and blocking course, and a moulded stone doorway gives access to a six-panelled door with an overlight. Two 2-light hipped dormers sit atop the roof. On the left end of the front, two windows are present on each floor, mirroring the front elevation, interspersed with a small oval bull’s-eye window on both floors. Two boarded basement windows are also present. Extensions were added to the rear in 1862. Projecting from either corner of the front of the house are semicircular iron railings on a stone plinth, together with a central pair of gates. The railings are topped with spearhead finials and urn finials at intervals. The interior is notably fine, featuring a staircase with twisted balusters and substantial late 17th-century panelling. Garden walls, approximately 2 metres high, extend from the rear along Albert Street and from the right corner along Main Street. Inscribed below the first-floor pediment is the date 1678, and the arms in the cartouche above are believed to be those of Parker. The house was likely built by William Parker, who died in 1699, and his monument resides in Kibworth Beauchamp Church. The house is remarkable for its period, representing an early example of brick construction in the district and a well-developed Renaissance house style, a type rare in Leicestershire before the beginning of the 18th century.