The Old Vicarage

The Old Vicarage is a house, originally a vicarage, dating from around 1500, with alterations and extensions likely made in the 18th century and 1882. It is constructed of limestone rubble, partly rendered, with coursed squared limestone ashlar dressings and part-old plain-tile roofs, featuring brick and ashlar stacks. The building began as a hall house with a cross wing, later enlarged to a U-plan.

The front of the main range, which is two storeys high, has 19th-century stone mullioned windows. A stone lean-to addition at ground level mirrors these windows, and returns to connect with a short 19th-century stone wing projecting from the left of the main range. The half-hipped gable end of this wing features stone mullioned-and-transomed windows, a 4-centre arched stone doorway, and a parapetted canted bay window at first floor. A lower, random-rubble range runs alongside the left side, displaying five 2-light casements with stone surrounds dating from around 1500, featuring wide casement mouldings and labels with deep drops. A small roof dormer is also present. The rear of the main range contains a large 19th-century two-storey bay window. A service range, probably from the 18th century, extends from the right end of the main range and is partly rendered over light framing.

Inside the main range is a three-bay hall, now divided horizontally, and retaining a fine arch-braced collar-truss roof with cambered collars and hollow-chamfered braces extending from the arches to shortened wallposts. The rafters are pegged at the ridge, and two rows of butt purlins are supported on heavy arched windbraces. A two-bay roof in the chamber at the right end of the main range has a similar structure, including a ridge piece and a “scissor” type central truss formed from opposed S-shaped braces. The chamber itself contains a Tudor-arched fireplace with a wooden bressumer, recessed spandrels, and hollow chamfering on the ashlar jambs. The room below has intersecting moulded V-section beams and wide hollow-chamfered joists, with a likely 19th-century plaster boss. Two Tudor-arched wooden doorways, one blocked, are also present, one retaining an ancient plank door with original ironmongery. The cross wing has roof structures from the 17th/early 18th century and 19th century, but retains a fragment of an earlier roof with a diagonally-set ridge piece. The present through-passage, now opening into a 19th-century stair hall, likely occupies the site of a former screens passage. A wide Tudor-arched moulded bressumer, now re-set on its side in a chimneybreast below the chamber, may be a remnant of a missing hall fireplace, possibly located where the present bay window now stands.