Former The Old Vicarage

Former The Old Vicarage

A two-storey house built in mottled gault brick with slate-clad roofs, dating from the late 18th or early 19th century. The building has an irregular L-shaped plan with a square element projecting from the corner of the two ranges. The main north-west range features cross gables at either end, a small centrally placed rear projection under a catslip roof, and a rear parallel section at right angles to the south-west cross gable. A south-east extension was added in 1847, set under a separate pitched roof and running parallel to the earlier section.

The exterior displays low-pitched roofs with brick multiple ridge stacks and deep eaves supported by paired timber brackets. A brick plinth and brick band at first-floor level run across the house, except on the south-east extension. The north-west entrance front, which faces the church, comprises a three-bay central section flanked by slightly projecting gabled bays. The windows are six-over-six pane sash windows with slender glazing bars, gauged brick flat heads and narrow timber sills. The front door occupies the third bay of the central section and features a heavy classical doorcase with square attached columns, plain frieze and projecting moulded cornice. The recessed wide front door has four moulded panels and a two-light rectangular overlight. The left (north-east) return wall is blind and faces the road.

The south-west garden front has two bays lit by eight-over-eight pane sash windows matching the front elevation details. The second bay is gabled and contains a ground-floor canted bay window with brick piers and heavy white-painted cornice. The main window of the canted bay is an eight-over-twelve pane sash extending almost to ground level, flanked by four-over-four pane sashes. The canted bay windows and the ground-floor window to the left have shaped external blind boxes. To the right is the gable end of the lower 1847 extension, lit at ground floor by a multi-pane sash window. This extension's front elevation has three bays lit by ten-over-ten pane sash windows with white-painted wedge lintels and narrow sills. An entrance door between the second and third bay has a matching wedge lintel. The right return wall has two small multi-pane horizontal windows at ground-floor level.

The interior features an entrance hall leading through a wide shallow arch to a staircase. To the right are two reception rooms facing the garden; to the left are former service rooms now used as dining room and kitchen. Four bedrooms occupy the first floor, along with small attic rooms. A door to the left of the staircase provides access to the 1847 extension, which has open-plan ground-floor accommodation and two bedrooms above. The house retains a high level of quality joinery, predominantly 19th-century, including moulded doorframes, four-panelled doors, dado rails and cornices, some dentilled in the ground-floor rooms. One attic door has H-L hinges indicating 18th-century origins. The pale grey marble fireplaces in the two reception rooms are 20th-century installations in late Georgian style. The delicate fireplace in the canted bay room has shaped, angled jambs terminating in scrolls. The other reception room fireplace is typically neo-Classical with fluted jambs and a mantelpiece carved with figurative roundels and triglyph motifs. Two delicately carved neo-Classical timber fireplaces, painted white, survive in the bedrooms above the reception rooms, though both openings are blocked. One has jambs embellished with floral motifs and a mantelpiece with swags and vases; the other has a moulded shouldered surround with dentilled soffit. The elegant late-18th or early 19th-century open well staircase features a closed string with shaped tread ends, two stick balusters per tread, slender newel posts and a mahogany handrail. At the foot of the stairs, the scrolled rail is supported by a circular rod.

A large free-standing indoor swimming pool to the east side of the house, built in the 1980s, and a row of late-19th-century timber-clad outbuildings with corrugated iron roofs incorporating stables and storage, are not of special interest.