The Old Rectory

The Old Rectory, now a house, was built in the mid-18th century. It is located in Richards Castle and incorporates elements of an earlier core. The building consists of two parallel gabled blocks, with a central projecting gabled bay to both the front and rear. These blocks run east-west and were constructed upon a pre-existing five-bay range running north-south.

The exterior is brick with a slate roof. The north front features a five-window range, with the central bay slightly advanced under a gable. It has six-over-six sash windows with gauged brick lintels, a central Venetian sash over a pedimented glazed entrance door and doorcase, and a lunette sash in the attic gable. The Venetian and lunette windows have simple entablatures and projecting keystones. The doorcase has flat pilasters with console brackets, an open pediment with a re-entrant semicircular fanlight with star-shaped glazing bars, and a nine-light glazed door with side lights. Small, later casements have been irregularly added to each storey. A brick storey band runs around the building. A timber cornice and gable bargeboards cap the structure. The right return side of the front block has two six-over-six sashes to the ground and first floors, and an eight-over-eight sash to the attic. The rear block has a blocked attic lunette in its gable-end, with bargeboards, and a six-panelled door in a doorcase with an eared moulded architrave. A flat-roofed extension with rendered canted walls, supported by plain round cast-iron columns, obscures the first floor.

The rear of the house has a five-window range with six-over-six sashes and brick segmental-arched lintels flanking a central, projecting gabled bay. A lunette sash is positioned in the attic gable. The central projection has a flat-roofed, two-storey, three-sided canted bay with six-over-six sashes, brick segmental-arched lintels, stone sills, and an eight-light French door at ground floor centre. Dentil brick eaves and gable bargeboards are prominent. The left return side has two six-over-six sashes and a single six-over-six sash in the attic gable, all with brick segmental-arched lintels and stone sills, and French doors at ground floor level, over a low panel, beneath a fanlight with glazing bars and a brick round-arched lintel. An early 19th-century, two-storey slate-roofed stone and brick service wing obscures the gable-end of the rear block.

Inside, the ground-floor rooms retain original moulded cornices, six-panel doors in moulded doorcases, and sash boxes to the front sashes. Original chimney pieces are present in the west room of the front range on both ground and first floors, and in the central room of the rear block. An oak staircase in the front block features a column on vase balusters and a toadback handrail. The original core of the five-bay north-south range has four twin-strut and collar trusses and a single trenched purlin roof.