The Old House

The Old House is a house and former shop located on Chapel Street in Wellesbourne Mountford. It dates from the mid-18th century and was refronted around 1820. The building is constructed of brick laid in Flemish bond with buff headers and features a slate roof with brick end stacks. It has a single-unit plan plus a two-unit plan.

The exterior is two storeys high and has a symmetrical three-window range with a central forward break, along with a single-window shop range to the left. There is a reeded first-floor sill course and a top cornice. The entrance features a doorcase with pilasters, lion masks, and a bracketed open pediment-hood, along with a fanlight that has decorative glazing bars over a six-fielded-panel door set in fielded-panel reveals. An enriched boot scraper is also present. The windows have sills and rusticated wedge lintels with key blocks above eight-over-twelve sash windows on the ground floor, and two eight-over-eight sashes on the first floor, with a painted blind window to the right.

The former shop has a top dentilled brick cornice. Its shop front includes reeded pilasters and an undulating entablature with a flat modillioned cornice over the entrance, which has an overlight with decorative glazing bars above paired half-glazed doors. Flanking half-bow windows feature small-paned glazing over flush panels. The first floor has a window with a sill and a rubbed brick flat arch with a key block over an eight-over-eight sash. The right return continues the sill band with a brick flat arch over a six-over-six horned sash on the first floor. The rear of the building reportedly has a datestone from 1753.

The interior has not been inspected. The Old House is noted as a good example of a Georgian shop front.