The Old Vicarage

THE OLD VICARAGE, SUNNINGHILL

A vicarage, now private house, built in 1906 by architect Frank Sidney Chesterton. It stands adjacent to the Church of All Souls, which was designed by J L Pearson and built in 1896-7 to serve the expanding commuter population of South Ascot.

CONSTRUCTION AND MATERIALS

The building is constructed of orange-red brick with seasoned oak used extensively in window frames and mullions. The roof is covered with handmade clay tiles.

PLAN AND LAYOUT

The house follows an L-plan. The main block to the south contains reception rooms and bedrooms opening onto a full-height stair hall. A lower service wing projects to the north, containing kitchen, storerooms and a bedroom above.

EXTERIOR

The design follows Arts and Crafts principles and is characterised by steeply-pitched roofs with sprocketed (upswept) eaves, tall corbelled chimney stacks and irregular fenestration comprising small rectangular leaded lights set in mullioned oak frames. The west gable end features a massive projecting stack with multiple offsets. The main entrance to the left is a nine-panel oak door recessed in a round-arched opening with multiple orders. A tall inverted L-shaped stair window to the north has a small hipped dormer and cruciform ridge stack above. The lower service wing projects to the left with a low-eaved hipped roof and very tall stack. The more formal south front displays three large mullion-and-transom windows lighting the principal ground-floor rooms, and three gabled half-dormers to bedrooms above. A modern garage and carport to the north of the service wing are not of special interest.

INTERIORS

The interior remains little altered. Most rooms retain original moulded cornices, skirting boards and six-panel doors set in moulded surrounds. The central stair-hall contains a large fireplace with panelled timber mantel. The open-well staircase has a heavy oak rail, turned balusters and square newels with ball finials. Large fireplaces with green tiled surrounds feature in both the dining room and sitting room. The dining room fireplace is flanked by arched niches with part-glazed doors, while the sitting room has a canted left-hand section incorporating a cupboard. The dining room ceiling displays four floral sprays in moulded plaster. The drawing room has a fireplace with panelled timber mantel and simple carved stone surround. The master bedroom on the first floor contains a large tiled fireplace, while other first- and second-floor rooms have smaller fireplaces with moulded timber surrounds. The service wing has been modified to contain a modern kitchen/dining room, fuel store and outside WC.

ARCHITECT

Frank Sidney Chesterton (1876-1916) was a cousin of the writer G K Chesterton. Born into a prosperous family of property surveyors in Kensington, west London, he designed numerous houses, flats and business premises in that area during the early 1900s, including the palatial Hornton Court complex on Kensington High Street (where the family firm, now the estate agents Chesterton Humberts, maintains offices) and a row of modest townhouses at 12-54 Hornton Street (Grade II). He also worked on country-house restorations and, with John Duke Coleridge, on houses at Norbury Manor in Streatham as part of London County Council's early cottage estates. Chesterton died of wounds sustained at the Battle of the Somme in 1916.