The Old Rectory

The Old Rectory is a house, originally built as the Rectory for Redgrave. The core of the building dates from the early 17th century, with extensions added in the 18th century, and substantial recasing and further extensions in the mid-to-late 19th century. The construction is timber frame, with the later additions faced in red brick. The steeply pitched plain tile roof covers the building.

The original early 17th-century range consists of six bays, divided into two cells, with a later four-bay range attached to form an “L” shape on the plan. A complex series of later additions create an irregular rectangular overall block. The building is two storeys high with attics.

The front range was refaced in the 19th century, with a three-bay design dating from that period. It features a central projecting 19th-century porch with double four-panelled doors. The first floor has a sash window, a moulded brick cornice, a string course, trefoiled bargeboards to the gable, and small sash windows on the returns. The outer bays have tripartite glazing bar sashes with timber uprights for blind boxes; the first floor has glazing bar sashes. All openings have chamfered surrounds with gauged brick flat arched heads and stone sills. A canted bay window is on the ground floor of the left gable end, featuring cusped bargeboards. A 19th-century bay is located to the rear left, with a ground floor bay window and segmental headed sash windows. Axial stacks, with filletted shafts and oversailing caps, were added in the 19th century.

To the rear right and set back is the original 17th-century range, connecting to the earlier main range further back. The linking range has two bays of glazing bar sashes, a fanlighted six-panelled door to the right, two two-light glazing bar casement gabled dormers, and a hip roof over a 19th-century rear addition. The gable end of the original early range projects slightly, with lower eaves and a higher ridge than the linking range, and features four-eight-pane and sixteen-pane flush frame sashes, and a two-light casement in the attic. The left gable end has tripartite windows in the attic, and a half-glazed door to the rear left. A ridge stack is located to the right of centre, with a rebuilt cap.

Attached to the rear of the main building are single-storey 19th-century service outbuildings, built in plastered timber frame, red brick and flint, with ridge stacks, and a hipped roof to the right.

The interior of the front rooms features 18th-century box cornices and a 19th-century staircase. The original early range contains axial binding beams with run-out stops and ovolo mouldings, altered close studding, two- and four-light ovolo mullioned windows, and a lower butt and upper clasped purlin roof with cambered collars, cranked windbraces in the end bays. The secondary 17th-century range has a concealed frame and a double butt purlin roof with cambered collars. The roof of the later front block has unusual framed trusses supporting large side purlins.