Old Rectory

Old Rectory

A former rectory house built in 1845 by architect Samuel Sanders Teulon for the Honourable Reverend Thomas Robert Keppel, who was incumbent from 1844 to 1863. The building is constructed of red brick with gault brick dressings and slate roofs, displaying a picturesque domestic Gothic style with Tudor details that predates Teulon's characteristic High Victorian maturity.

The house is two storeys with attics. Its facades are multi-gabled with complex opposed axes: the main east-west axis features an entrance gable wing crossed by a double-depth roofed north-south axis containing the reception rooms. The entrance front to the west comprises a single bay with an off-centre porch having an arched entrance and semi-octagonal angle piers with crowning pedestals. Above this rises a gabled parapet with a central finial. The inner door is a three-light traceried glazed door, with three-light cast iron casements to the north and south returns featuring closely-set glazing bars, flanked by two rectangular casements. The first floor displays a rectangular gault brick three-light oriel window with a bracketed corbelled base and cornice, inscribed "Anno Domini 1845". A two-light attic gable casement is positioned above. Gault brick quoins, kneelers and gable tumbling define the edges, with a coped parapet and a bracketed two-shaft apex stack with moulded coping.

The north and south returns have single rectangular-headed casements on both ground and first floors. A bay to the north of the entrance front contains one ground and one first floor two-light casement, with a eaves-level gabled two-light semi-dormer above. The north return has an eaves stack with three shafts. A bay to the south of the entrance front features an external stack with single ground and first floor plate glass sashes incorporated within the external chimney breast, which has a battered base and two semi-octagonal stacks with gault brick dressings.

The south front west gable features a two-storey shallow rectangular gault brick bow containing one three-light ground floor casement and one two-light first floor casement. A coped gable rises above with an apex finial bearing a metal pennant inscribed with the architect's initials SST. The south front east bay has a ground floor three-sided canted bay with three cross windows and a battlemented parapet, with one first floor three-light casement semi-dormer above.

The north front contains, on the entrance axis, a shallow ground floor bow with a four-light casement and an attic gable two-light casement above, topped by a coped gable with central finial. A bay to the south-east features an external chimney breast with a three-shaft stack.

The roof of the entrance axis wing is crowned by a central wooden octagonal lantern with tracery and tinted glass, rising to a central spire and finial. To the north stands a gabled two-storey kitchen wing with an elaborate gault brick dressed external chimney breast supporting a Gothic arched apex bellcote with a battered head, pedestal and weather vane inscribed with the patron's initials TRK (Thomas Robert Keppel). A porch with a crow-stepped gable parapet is located at the north.

A single-storey wing is attached at the north, connecting at right angles with two-storey cottages featuring one ground and one first floor four-light casement, coped parapets and gable-end stacks. At the north end stands a three-bay stable range with a central gabled semi-dormer loft door. To the west, at right angles, lies a three-bay carriage range, all featuring coped parapet gables.

The interior contains a later nineteenth-century replacement staircase and ground floor hall in Jacobethan classical style, with a rectangular landing well open to the lantern above. A room at the south-west retains a Sylvester patent grate. Late nineteenth-century grates by Barnard Bishop and Barnard of Norwich, featuring Japanese motifs, are present elsewhere in the house.

The scale and lavishness of the house reflect the considerable wealth of the incumbent, who was the youngest son of the 4th Earl of Albemarle, and the status of this living, which was the richest benefice in the Diocese of Norwich.