The Red House

The Red House is a house with origins in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, significantly remodelled in 1707, and subsequently altered in the early 20th century. It is constructed of red Flemish bond brick with a moulded stone plinth, quoins, a string course, and stone dressings. The roof is tiled, hipped, with a wood coved cornice and brick ridge stacks. The building has a complex L-plan.

The main front, originally the entrance front, has a large stone doorway in the second bay, featuring a moulded eared architrave, a narrow sunk panelled bolection-moulded entablature which breaks forward on either side, and a scroll pediment. A sash window has been inserted in place of the original door. There are two further sashes to the right. The first floor has a raised brick panel and a painted wood sundial dated in the brickwork where a window was formerly located. Window openings are topped with gauged brick flat arches featuring keystones. Rusticated alternating quoins are present on the right corner. The main entrance is now located in a 20th-century wing. The left return side has a doorway with a moulded stone architrave, a glazed door and overlight with fan glazing, and a mid/late 20th-century wood porch with Tuscan columns and a simple entablature with large dentils. A narrow sash window is to the right, with a mid/late 20th-century sash above. The right return side has 20th-century additions. The garden front consists of a two-window main range and a two-window wing projecting to the left, with further additions beyond. The main range features mid/late 19th-century French windows and a loggia with octagonal brick pillars and a tile lean-to roof. The first floor has a sash window, and an early 20th-century leaded cross window on the right. The wing stands on a high limestone ashlar cellar with chamfered single-light windows. The ground floor of the wing has an early 20th-century four-light leaded wood-mullioned oriel with a tile roof, and the first floor has sashes. A hipped roof tops the wing, and a dormer window has a casement with glazing bars.

Internally, one room contains a wide open fireplace with a stop-chamfered bressumer. Within this fireplace is an early 20th-century surround incorporating imported 17th-century wood panels and pilasters. Above the fireplace, the wall features two late 16th/early 17th-century plaster caryatids. A Jacobean plaster ceiling is divided into two compartments by a decorated central beam, the compartments featuring rope work panels with vase-shaped decoration at each corner, and central roundels containing a rose motif. A running vine cornice is interrupted by window openings. A staircase has twisted balusters. Fielded two-panelled doors have H-hinges. A room contains cupboards that were reportedly used for wigs. The house is reputedly of origin as a rectory.