The Old Rectory

The Old Rectory stands within the village of Rushbury, opposite the Church of St Peter, at the foot of Wenlock Edge overlooking the valley of Ape Dale. It is a 17th-century rectory that was substantially altered and extended in 1852 by William John Donthorn in the Tudorbethan style.

Materials and Construction

The earliest part of the building is thought to be timber-framed, later encased in red Ludlow brick in the 18th century with some red sandstone to the chimney stacks. Donthorn's later additions are built in buff-coloured sandstone from the nearby Soudley quarry. The roof is laid with clay tiles interspersed with bands of red fish-scale tiles on the garden elevation. There are three tall moulded Tudorbethan chimney stacks positioned at either gable end and at the porch of the garden elevation. Two further groups of stacks serving the older part of the building, shown on Donthorn's drawings, have been lost.

Plan and Layout

The building is roughly square in plan and rises two to three storeys. Donthorn's additions wrap around the earlier parts of the building on the south-east garden front and the north-east principal façade. These additions created a suite of new reception rooms arranged in a pinwheel plan around a double-height central hall, with service rooms and lesser bedrooms generally relocated to the older parts of the building. A former dairy of 1852, located to the south-west, has been demolished. The remaining service buildings have been demolished or considerably altered.

Exterior

The principal elevation is irregular but dominated by Donthorn's entrance, which is slightly set back under a stepped shouldered gable and leads to the double-height hallway beyond. To the left is the gable end of the garden front and to the right a substantial red sandstone and brick chimney with a moulded cap which serves the older 17th-century range beyond. The gothic traceried panelled front door is set within a pointed roll-moulded arch under a hoodmould with plain stops. The whole is set within an expanse of mullioned windows rising to the full height of the hallway beyond, all under a hoodmould with a plain string and a further two-light mullion set within the gable above.

The garden front presents a more formal, symmetrical composition of three bays and two storeys. A central gabled porch projects between two canted bays with mullioned and transomed windows, flat roofs and shallow crenellated parapets. The door, a replacement from around the 1930s, is set within a moulded architrave under a rectangular fanlight and hoodmould, with a mullioned and transomed window at first floor and a small carved shield set within a square recessed panel above. The face of the shield is weathered and it is unclear whether it was ever carved.

The north-west rear elevation is three storeys and comprises the two projecting gable-end wings of the 17th-century core with slightly later infill between the wings. There is a later 18th-century two-storey canted bay to the left and a small lean-to porch in the return of the right wing with an 18th-century door fitted with strap hinges. Windows are 12-pane sliding sashes.

The south-western elevation is irregular with sash windows and dormers. A single-storey 20th-century extension stands approximately in the position of the former dairy.

Interior

The interior is dominated by the double-height hall with views across to the tower of the Church of St Peter. There is an open-well stair with an octagonal newel post with a shaped finial, turned balusters and a moulded handrail. Half-landings accommodate the different floor levels between the earlier 17th-century parts of the building and the later additions by Donthorn. There are applied beams supported on moulded corbels to the ceiling of the hall. The principal rooms on the 19th-century garden front retain their cornices, window shutters, ceiling roses, and Tudor-arched stone fire surrounds with crenellated mantels and carved spandrels. Other features of note include reeded and panelled architraves, six-panel doors, a 17th-century fire surround and stopped and chamfered cross beams in the earlier core of the building.

History

The Church of St Peter contains reportedly Anglo-Saxon fabric suggesting pre-Conquest origins to the parish. A rectory has been recorded in Rushbury since around 1260, with the living belonging originally to the lord of Rushbury Manor until 1792 when patronage reverted to the Bishop of Worcester as owner of the freehold of the manor. It remained with the Bishop of Worcester until transferred to the Bishop of Birmingham on the creation of that see in 1903. The rectory was recorded as being worth £14 in 1291, increasing to £19 15 shillings 4 pence in 1535. The earliest surviving phase of the present building is the 17th-century core, probably originally timber-framed but refaced and extended in the 18th century. Contemporary descriptions of the rectory report it as having farm buildings and a pigeon house in 1589, and in 1793 it was described as 'very handsome'. In 1818, the Reverend M Y Starkie undertook renovations to the house soon after becoming rector, including the whitewashing of the external brickwork, although the archdeacon was critical of the work, suggesting that this had destroyed the 'respectability' of the building.

Concerns about the suitability of the accommodation as a rectory continued, however, and in 1852 when the Reverend Frederick H Hotham became rector, he petitioned the Bishop of Hereford for permission to enlarge the rectory on the grounds that the existing building was 'not fit for a gentleman and his family to live in'. Following approval of his petition, Hotham set about work rebuilding the church and rectory. Perhaps having become familiar with his work in his native Norfolk, Hotham appointed William John Donthorn to enlarge the rectory while William Smith of Smethcott carried out works to the church.

William John Donthorn (1799-1859) made his career in London but built on connections with his native Norfolk, making his name as a country house architect. He began his architectural training at Sir Jeffry Wyattville's office in London in 1817 before beginning a series of commissions in 1823 which soon set the precedent for his work designing in both Gothic and Classical styles and culminating in his designs for Highcliffe Castle, Dorset, perhaps his most ambitious country house. As well as his country house work, Donthorn adapted and enlarged some 15 rectories, chiefly in eastern England, and undertook a number of commissions for public buildings including the Peterborough Gaol and notably the Leicester Monument at Holkham, Norfolk. Built in 1852-1853, Rushbury was perhaps his last rectory commission although The Priory, Oundle Road, Chesterton, Cambridgeshire, built in 1852, is contemporary. Two drawings of the garden elevation he designed for Rushbury survive in the folios of his work in the RIBA Library, one in a rusticated style and one in the more restrained ashlar finish which was implemented.

The Old Rectory was sold into private hands along with four acres of land in 1968. In the late 1980s, it was purchased with the intention of conversion to a health care centre although these plans were not realised and it lay empty for a number of years until purchased by the present owners in 1993.

This building is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons: as a characteristic example of a rectory by William John Donthorn, an interesting early 19th-century architect; as a good example of an evolved vicarage with a 17th-century core, showing the mid-19th-century concern for clerical dignity; as a representative example of Donthorn's pared-down approach to design, here given Tudorbethan treatment as befitting a rectory; for its historic interest as one of the key buildings, along with the church and the manor, reflecting the importance of Rushbury as a settlement from the Anglo-Saxon period onwards; for its good use of local materials; for the survival of the early 17th-century core; and for its group value with the nearby Church of St Peter and the Church of England School.