Bishops House

Bishops House is a house, formerly a vicarage, dating from around the early 18th century. It was extended in the 1830s and again in the late 20th century. The original core is built of red brick in a Flemish bond pattern, while the 1830s additions are of gault brick. Slate roofs with deep eaves cover the building. A large brick axial stack, centrally located to the original 18th-century block, features four flues linked by arches. The original layout was a three-storey central block with a basement and a two-room plan, with a lobby entrance within a projecting central bay. In the 1830s, the house was extended to the sides and with a significant north range, which now forms the front elevation. A late 20th-century conservatory was added to the west end, and a small wing to the east. The north-facing elevation has a long range of ten windows, with the right-hand bay projecting. The windows are mostly twelve-pane sashes, set within rubbed brick flat arches. A gabled brick porch, featuring a recessed round-arch doorway with a fanlight and panelled door, is located in the sixth bay. The south elevation has a one-bay-three-bay arrangement, with rusticated brick quoins in the central bay. Other features include twelve-pane sashes with cambered brick arches, a two-light casement with glazing bars on the second floor, a tall central half-glazed door with overlight, and narrow round-arch windows in the porch returns. Later French casements, sashes, and tripartite sashes are found on the flanking wings. Inside, much of the joinery from the 1830s remains, including an open-well staircase, panelled doors and shutters, cornices, and various fireplaces, some marble with iron grates. A relocated 18th-century china cupboard is in a room to the east of the entrance hall. Plaster has been removed from the walls, ceiling, and coved chimneybreast in the original ground floor room. A small, open-well, early 18th-century attic staircase, with a moulded string and rail, turned balusters, and square newels, is present in the original block.