The Old Rectory

The Old Rectory

Rectory, later used as a school, now a private house, designed by architect Henry Woodyer and dated 1863. The building is constructed of flint rubble with Bathstone windows and red brick dressings including moulded brick verges, eaves, string courses, quoins and relieving arches. Plain tile gable-ended steeply-pitched roofs are carried on lateral and axial stacks with tall red brick shafts. Original cast-iron drainpipes with ornate rainwater heads survive. The design exemplifies High Victorian Gothic style with an interestingly integrated composition showing imaginative use of materials.

The plan is asymmetrical with double depth arranged in two parallel ranges. A long entrance hall occupies the north front range with a lateral stack on the left, an entrance porch on the right, and staircase at the right end. The three principal rooms—drawing room, study or parlour, and dining room—are located in the deeper south range behind, facing the south garden. Service rooms and a back staircase occupy the left east end, partly contained within the remains of an older range of circa early 19th century or possibly earlier origin.

The building comprises two storeys, attics and cellars with asymmetrical elevations. The north front features a short gabled wing to the left and a gabled single storey porch to the right, constructed of knapped flint with a date and Latin inscription. The porch has diagonal buttresses and a chamfered two-centred arch with moulded inner doorway, both with original doors. Large three-light mullion-transom windows light the ground floor with small two-light first floor windows beneath small gables that break the eaves, above which rises a tall brick lateral stack.

The west elevation presents a fine asymmetrical composition formed by the gable ends of the two parallel and staggered ranges. The wider rear range to the right is set back and features a large stone six-light traceried bay window with a brick relieving arch. To its left stands a gabled stair oriel on a complex brick corbel, set in the angle between the two ranges but integral with the projecting narrower left range, which has two stair windows stepped up on a stepped moulded brick stringcourse.

The south garden front displays two large three-light windows on the ground floor with capped heads to the lights, and similar windows in a large stone canted bay on the right with a pierced quatrefoil parapet. Above to the right are a double two-light window and a four-light window, both under small gables. In the roof to the left, two half-hipped dormers with an axial stack between, clasping the ridge.

On the north-east corner stands a circa early 19th century or earlier range remodelled as part of the service wing. It is rendered with a gable-ended pantile roof and features an early 19th century sash window with glazing bars in the north gable.

The interior remains largely unaltered with most original joinery surviving, including panelled doors on both ground and first floors. The porch inner doorway has a moulded stone two-centred arch and plank double doors with ornate wrought-iron hinges. The hall contains a narrow chimney breast entirely panelled, though its chimneypiece is missing, and a wide pine staircase with widely spaced balusters, square newels and moulded handrail and string. The drawing room features a Jacobean style carved wooden chimneypiece with moulded cornice and shafts to the window bays. The dining room has a similar cornice and shafts to the window bay, though its chimneypiece is a later addition. Only the corridor on the first floor was inspected, not the rooms themselves.

Signed drawings by Woodyer are held in the Suffolk Record Office (ref: SR1 PHP FF1-26-1).