The Old Rectory including courtyard outbuildings

The Old Rectory, along with its courtyard outbuildings, is a house dating from 1836-8, with earlier origins and later alterations. It was designed by E. Rednall, a builder from Stowmarket, for Reverend Richard Daniel. The main structure is built of gault brick, with a hipped slate roof and gault and red brick end and ridge stacks. It is in a simplified Late Classical style.

The front of the house, facing the entrance drive, has a four-window range with 6/6 sash windows over 6/9 sash windows, all unhorned and with stucco lintels. To the right is a projecting three-storey section with panelled and moulded brickwork and a doorcase surrounded by brickwork. A late 20th-century pediment sits above this section. Other windows are 6/6 sashes, except for a central first-floor window which is 8/8. The left side of the house, behind the drive front, contains a door and further windows including sashes. A smaller wing and a courtyard of single-story outbuildings project to the right of the entrance front.

Inside, there is an open-well staircase with a stick balustrade and a mahogany handrail with a scrolled end. Six-panel doors are also present. The interior is reported to retain timber-framing from an earlier building that stood on the site.

Historical records, including drawings and correspondence in the Suffolk Record Office, show the front elevation inscribed ‘Elevation Combs Rectory’ and signed ‘E. Rednall, Builder, Stowmarket.’ The drawings depict 6/6 sash windows on the ground floor; however, the house as built has 6/9 sashes. A plan shows a staircase similar to the existing one, and a porch in the position of the current front door. The present projecting entrance frontispiece may front an earlier building that was incorporated into the Rednall rebuilding scheme. Ephraim Rednall was a builder and surveyor in Stowmarket, son of Richard Rednall, a carpenter from Finningham. In 1837, he built the Vicarage at Stowmarket in partnership with Daniel Revett, another builder. The work at Combs cost £1266-16s-5d.