The Old Vicarage and associated boundary wall to west

The Old Vicarage

This is a picturesque, neo-Gothic house built in red brick laid in English bond with Ancaster stone dressings, beneath steeply pitched slate-clad roofs with ridge tiles. The building is approached from the north, which forms the principal entrance front.

The house has an asymmetrical, approximately rectangular plan with two storeys and an attic storey in the west part. A narrow single-storey range dating from the 20th century links the main house on its west side to the former coach house, which has been converted for garaging and domestic use. An early 21st-century single-storey flat-roofed glazed range also connects the west side of the house to this converted coach house.

The exterior is characterised by a multi-gabled roofscape, tall chimney stacks, and lancet windows. The north elevation features a succession of gabled bays. On the left is a coped gabled bay with stone kneelers at the foot of the gable and halfway along its coping. The first-floor window is a triple-lancet with trefoil heads in a square-headed stone architrave, with a stone-carved trefoil above in the gable head. To the left are stone quoins and a buttress with stone offsets. The projecting entrance bay has matching stone quoins and buttresses. Its left-hand side presents a gable end containing a double-leaf plank and batten door in an elaborate moulded Gothic arch surround with a pair of small attached columns featuring foliate capitals and head stops. A triple-lancet window sits on the first floor, while the gable head displays a Greek cross in vitrified brick surmounted by a finial in the form of a Celtic cross. The right-hand side of the entrance bay, which has a dentilled cornice, features a quadruple lancet on the ground floor and a stone armorial tablet above. The left return wall has a single lancet on the ground floor; the right return has a small window with timber glazing bars on the ground floor and a three-pane casement window on the first floor, both with moulded surrounds. To the right of the entrance bay is a late 20th-century glazed lean-to, above which is a gabled dormer with paired lancets across the eaves and a wide ridge stack. The final bay, slightly recessed, has a tall projecting chimney stack with three recessed panels surmounted by three tall multi-facetted flues. At ground-floor level is a single-storey gabled projection lit by a two-pane casement window. Attached to this is a single-storey range with a pitched roof, lit by a two-pane casement window with a segmental-arched head and brick sill. The west gable end is lit by two-pane casements at ground, first, and attic level, with stairs leading down to the cellar.

The south elevation is plainer, lit by casement windows, most of which are late 20th-century replicas. From the left are three-pane casements at ground and first-floor level, followed by a French window and a two-pane casement above. Next is a projecting gabled bay containing a square-cut bay window with a late 20th-century replica bordered French window and a stone-coped parapet beneath which are cornerstones carved with trefoils. A three-pane casement sits above, with a two-pane casement at attic level. A narrow recess follows, containing a bordered glazed door and a vertical window above. This is succeeded by a slightly projecting gabled bay, buttressed on the right, with a double-height square-cut bay window featuring stone offsets and similar detailing. The large bordered sash window on the ground floor is a late 20th-century replica, above which is a three-pane casement. The gable head displays a diamond motif in vitrified brick. On the east gable end is a projecting chimney stack similar to that on the last bay of the north elevation.

The interior features an entrance porch leading through a pointed-arched door with three upper glazed panels into a hall with a flag-stone floor, stone skirting, and softwood ceiling joists. Adjacent to the door is another pointed-arched opening leading to the main quarter-turn stone staircase, which has a broached stone pier. To the left of this arch, the staircase enclosure wall is pierced by two lancet windows with trefoil heads in a stone surround with raking sills incorporating a carved banister. The return wall is pierced by the top half of a lancet whose raking sill follows the pitch of the stairs. The hall connects through a pointed-arched door on the right to a corridor leading to the former service rooms at the west end and to two south-facing reception rooms at the east end. These have six-panelled doors (three panels wide, longer in the top half) with chamfers and stops around the panel edges and elaborate Gothic door furniture. Both rooms contain a moulded plaster cornice, panelled window soffits and shutters with similar chamfers and stops as the doors, and elaborate Gothic stone fireplaces. These feature a moulded arch flanked by slender round piers with foliate capitals, a motif repeated along the cornice. The frieze is carved with a flying banner, and the spandrels have mouchettes and quatrefoils with outward-pointing cusps enclosing the initials of the first owner. The south-facing room second from the west has a square-headed stone fireplace with simple moulding and contains the secondary stone staircase, which was relocated from the north side of the corridor. The first-floor corridor has a Gothic-arched opening to the right of the main staircase and a Gothic-arched niche in the north-west corner lit by a single lancet. Two rooms sit on the north side, and three main rooms on the south side, with the eastern-most room featuring a shallow-arched recess in front of the window. Two rooms contain square-headed moulded timber fireplaces with segmental-arched openings and cast-iron grates. The attic contains three plain bedrooms without fireplaces. Bedroom doors and those to the former service rooms are four-panelled.

The associated boundary wall to the west is constructed in red brick with saddle-back coping, decorated with intermittent moulded bricks consisting of coquillage and stylised leaves, interspersed with rows of three quatrefoil motifs on the buttresses.