The Old Vicarage

The Old Vicarage

The Old Vicarage is a house built between 1844 and 1855 to designs by William McIntosh Brookes. The service wing, yard and outbuildings contribute to the special interest of the whole, but are of lesser interest individually because of the degree of alteration they have undergone.

The building is constructed of yellow brick with a slate roof. The main house is roughly square in plan with a shallow hipped roof, two storeys over a partial basement. The front elevation faces north-northwest and the garden elevation south-southeast, though for ease of reference these are described as north, south, east and west. The former service wing adjoins the west side of the house, with a service yard to its west.

The main house has three bays with a central entrance to the north and a four-square arrangement of reception rooms, each served by its own chimney stack. An L-shaped entrance and stair hall separates the east and west reception rooms to the front, and front and rear reception rooms to the west. The reception rooms to the west are more altered: the front room has been divided to create a WC and study, accessed from the hall and former service wing respectively, and the rear room has been extended across its width to the south. The two larger reception rooms on the east side of the hall retain their original form.

The first-floor rooms are accessed from a galleried landing and retain their original proportions, but door openings have been altered—some added, some removed—to form ensuite bathrooms. The nursery, which originated as two interconnecting rooms, is now two separate rooms.

The former service wing is now two full storeys high with a gabled roof. It originally comprised a kitchen, scullery, larder, pantry and privies arranged around a small open coal yard, set behind a screen wall to the north running almost continuous with the front elevation of the house. Above the kitchen was a small loft room (labelled 'Mans Lo.' on Brookes' plan) accessed via a ladder, and the 'Female Servants Chamber', accessed from the half-landing of the main stair within the house. The ground floor has now been largely opened up and the coal yard absorbed into the interior. A stair to the first-floor rooms is in the approximate location of the original pantry. The larder and the position of the entrance to the coal yard from the scullery remain legible. The first floor has essentially been rebuilt, extending it to the full footprint of the service wing to provide two bedrooms. A recent phase of remodelling has given each bedroom an ensuite bathroom.

To the west of the former service wing is a walled yard, the north enclosing wall now lost, lined with single-storey outbuildings.

The house is a simple classical composition of yellow brick beneath a shallow hipped roof with deep eaves. Windows are multi-pane double-hung sashes beneath flat gauged arches, unless otherwise noted.

The principal elevation has three bays and a plat band. There is a central brick entrance porch with pedimented head and round-headed arch with fanlight. Set within the porch is a wide, half-glazed front door with arched fanlight. To either side are six-over-six sash windows, and above are three three-over-six sash windows. A small window has been inserted immediately west of the porch. Also to the west, a stair runs parallel to the front of the house from ground level down to a small area with a door to the basement. The enclosing metal balustrade is late 20th or 21st century.

The east elevation also has a plat band, meeting wide, shallow brick piers to either side. Two first-floor windows are three-over-six sashes, flanking a central two-over-four sash. All three windows have louvred shutters. There are two ground-floor windows, both six-over-six sashes with empty pintles in the reveals where shutters have been lost. There is evidence in the bonding and in the disturbance to the brickwork beneath both ground-floor windows to suggest that these were originally full-length windows (as shown on Brookes' drawings) which were subsequently altered to raise the sills. Faint, curved shadow lines to left and right of the respective window heads may be evidence of the tented roof of a lost veranda.

The rear elevation to the south is slightly stepped, the eastern half breaking forward of the western. The east half has a plat band and a single three-over-six sash window with louvred shutters to the first floor. At ground floor there is a full-height canted bay window with central six-over-nine sash window and two-over-three windows to either side. The absence of closer bricks indicates this opening has been widened. To either side of the window are shadow lines of what was probably a veranda with tented roof. The western half of the elevation has been built out at ground-floor level, in line with the eastern half, and a balcony created above. The lower part of the elevation is almost fully glazed: beneath transom lights there are sliding timber doors with glazing bars, hung from above by rollers on a track. A predominantly timber conservatory on a brick plinth has been built against this arrangement, enclosing it within the house. The conservatory appears on the mapping by 1938 but the fabric of the current structure post-dates this. On the first floor, what is likely to have originated as a sash window is now a pair of French windows opening onto the balcony. The ironwork around the balcony is late 20th or 21st century.

The former service range is against the west elevation of the house. To the north it is slightly set back from the principal entrance front of the main house and has an irregular arrangement of sash and casement windows with segmental arches and flat heads; all appear later additions reflecting the upward extension and internal remodelling. The only original feature is a central archway, now bricked up. The west elevation has an original window and door opening at ground floor. Both have segmental heads and the window is likely to be original joinery—a pair of timber casements, one opening one fixed, with flush-panelled shutters. A second window opening has been bricked up. There is a single window each at first-floor and attic level. The rear, to the south, is partially screened at ground floor by a second conservatory. Maps suggest a similar feature was in place by the late 19th century, but the fabric of the current structure is later. Ground-floor windows and openings appear later; first-floor windows appear contemporary with its rebuilding.

The principal ground-floor spaces of the main house are characterised by tall floor-to-ceiling heights, deep skirting boards, slender plaster cornices and wide four-panel doors. The stair has an open string and slender stick balusters with a wreathed hardwood handrail.

Most of the windows have hinged shutters which fold into splayed reveals. The principal rooms to the west have simple marble chimney pieces, one black, one white, each with service bell levers to either side. Both rooms have had Adams style enrichment added over the door architrave at a later date. The rooms to the east are plainer and more altered. Both have a picture rail but no cornice; the room to front has lost the fireplace and been divided to create a separate WC, and the room to the rear has a later chimney piece and has been extended outwards and now has glazed sliding doors. The joinery of these doors may be contemporary with the date of extension—around 1900.

The first floor is similar in character to the ground floor but with lower floor-to-ceiling heights, simpler joinery and no cornices to the individual rooms. Chimney pieces, where they survive, comprise simple flat timber surrounds with a small mantle-shelf.

The former service wing is reached internally from behind the main stair. It has been opened up on the ground floor but doors to the larder and utility room may be the original doors to the larder and coal yard. A service stair, presumably added when the first floor was rebuilt, is housed within a timber boarded enclosure. There is an electric service bell indicator board and a bank of service bells attached to the stair enclosure. The first-floor rooms, which can also be reached from the landing of the main stair, are the result of several phases of remodelling.

The service yard to the west is enclosed by a brick wall, although this has been lost to the north. It is partially paved in brick setts and traditional stable flooring blocks. The outbuildings are predominantly brick with some weather boarding, and what was possibly a stable building is enclosed by half-glazed folding garage doors opening onto the yard. The joinery of these buildings is late 20th or 21st century.