High Wych Grange

TL 4614 HIGH WYCH HIGH WYCH ROAD (east side) High Wych Village

16/9 High Wych Grange -

GV II Vicarage, now a house. 1862 (information from owner) by G E Pritchett (1824-1912) (Builder 8.3.1912 p 283). Built as Vicarage for Rev H F Johnson in newly-created parish. Sold in 1929 and renamed. In scholarly Gothic style facing W. Designed to give the effect of a tall medieval hall-house with 2 storey gabled cross-wings at each end. Unusually for Hertfordshire, built of stone. Limestone dressings with coursed, squared, rubble walling. White brick for service areas at NE, for upper parts of decorative chimneys, and for single storey outbuildings extending to rear (E). Very steep tiled gabled roof, with large timberframed 'louvre', tiled and bargeboarded rising above centre of hall range with small windows in sides. W front has a single storey projecting entrance porch in ashlar with heavy double doors under a segmental arch up 4 steps. This porch is at the S end of the hall range and has a moulded string and offset plinth corresponding to those of the hall. This has a tall mullioned and transomed 3-light stone window, rising through 2 storeys with a relieving arch above its rectangular head. The righthand cross wing has heavy bargeboards with trefoil cusped holes, and a large 3-light stone mullioned and transomed window on each floor. The lefthand cross-wing is more elaborate corresponding to the 'parlour wing' of a medieval hall-house. It has a different pattern of cusping on its heavy pierced bargeboards, a 3-light mullioned and transomed window on the upper floor, but a hipped roofed projecting stone square bay on the Ground floor, with a 3- light mullioned and transomed window and corresponding side lights. Picturesque irregular chimneys top the side walls of the cross wings, that on the N having stepped corbelling at its base with a central raised strip and tumbled brickwork in the upper part of the shaft. The garden front faces S, having 1-light and 2-light mullioned windows, with relieving arches over, on the upper floor, and a pair of long 4-light windowed projecting hipped roofed stone bays on the Ground floor. They flank a recessed pointed niche enclosed by a timber mullioned and transomed screen with French doors and 3 stone steps down to garden. Servants' parts in white brick with flat pointed arches, overlooking E service yard with single storey steep tile roofed gabled outbuildings with similar details extending in L-shape to E of house. Interior of house has high ceilings, and plaster cornices characterised by wide plain chamfers flanked by smaller mouldings on wall and ceiling. A staircase rises in the W 'hall range' lit by the tall window. A striking C19 stone house designed by Pritchett giving the impression of a large medieval hall-house, for a wealthy vicar. An essential element in the group of new parish buildings erected by Pritchett for Rev Johnson 1860-62.

Listing NGR: TL4645814011