Somersby House

Somersby House is a mid-18th century rectory, later adapted for residential use, with alterations made in the late 18th and 19th centuries, and again around 1975. The building is constructed of colourwashed red brick, with a pantile roof, two red brick gable stacks, and brick coped gables. It has a double ridge roof and a first floor band. The main block is two storeys plus a cellar, five bays wide. A single segmental arched cellar opening is on the left side. The front doorway has a six-panelled door with a traceried fanlight, flanked by slender Doric pilasters topped with an entablature and open pediment, and is covered by a 19th-century gabled hood with an orb finial. To the left of the doorway are four cambered arched sash windows with glazing bars. To the right is a small gabled hood with a bell. Above the ground floor, there are three similar sash windows under flat heads; the rightmost window is flanked by single 20th-century sash windows. Attached to the right is a single-storey wing with an attic, half-hipped to the right, dating to the 19th century. This wing has a first floor band and two 20th-century casements. The attic has a single half dormer with a hipped pantile roof and a tripartite casement. Attached to the left is a similar wing featuring a single red brick ridge stack and two 20th-century tripartite casements with two matching half dormers above. The rear elevation has a single-storey-plus-attic left bay and a late 18th-century two-storey bay with a coped gable, left gable stack, dentil eaves, and first floor bands. Further to the right are two mid-18th-century, lower two-storey bays, slightly set back, with a coped right gable, a red brick stack, moulded eaves, and first floor bands. On the far right are three 20th-century single-storey-plus-attic bays which replaced a demolished wing originally designed by George Tennyson. These bays contain, from left to right, a single segmental arched glazing bar sash window, a 20th-century canted bay with 19th-century first-floor sash windows, two large segmental arched glazing bar sashes, and in the 20th-century wing, two giant order pointed arched panels which break the roof line and are gabled over, each containing three glazing bar sashes with concrete lintels. The attic of this section has a single half dormer with two glazing bar sashes. A further two glazing bar sashes are located within the canted bay, with an ornate wrought iron balcony to the rightmost window. The 20th-century bays feature two pointed arched glazing bar sashes with intersecting tracery. Inside, a reset staircase has turned balusters, a tapering fluted newel, and carved tread ends, with matching balusters on the landing.