The Old Vicarage

BICESTER CHURCH STREET SP5822S (South side) 3/31 The Old Vicarage 03/01/52 (Formerly listed as The Vicarage) GV II*

Vicarage, now house. c.1500, altered and extended probably C18 and 1882. Limestone rubble, partly rendered, and coursed squared limestone with ashlar dressings; part-old plain-tile roofs with brick and ashlar stacks. Hall house with cross wing, enlarged to U-plan. 2 storeys and 2 storeys plus attics. 2-window front of rendered main range has C19 stone-mullioned windows at first floor; C19 stone lean-to addition to ground floor has similar windows with lattice glazing, and returns beside the short C19 stone wing which projects from the left of the main range. Half-hipped front gable end of wing has stone mullioned-and-transomed windows, and there is a 4-centre arched stone doorway in the end of the lean-to and a parapetted canted bay window at first floor in the angle of the ranges. Crosswing returns to an earlier random-rubble range, which has five 2-light casements, facing left, each set into a stone surround of c.1500 with wide casement mouldings and labels with deep drops; roof has a small roof dormer. Rear of main range includes a large 2-storey C19 bay window. Service range returning to rear from right end of main range is probably C18 and is partly rendered over light framing. Interior: main range comprises a 3-bay hall, now horizontally divided, but retaining a fine arch-braced collar-truss roof, with cambered collars, and hollow-chamfered braces extending from the apex of the arches down to shortened wallposts; rafters are pegged at the ridge and the 2 rows of butt purlins are supported on heavy arched windbraces. 2-bay roof of chamber at right end of main range has a similar structure, except that there is a ridge piece and the central truss is of "scissor" type, formed from opposed S-shaped braces. The chamber (or solar) contains a Tudor-arched fireplace with a wooden bressumer, recessed spandrels, and hollow chamfering carried down the ashlar jambs. The room below has a ceiling with intersecting moulded V-section beams and very wide hollow-chamfered joists (the plaster boss is probably C19), and it has 2 Tudor-arched wooden doorways (one blocked), with recessed spandrels, one doorway retaining an ancient plank door with original ironmongery. The cross wing has C17/early-C18 and C19 roof structures but retains a fragment of an earlier roof with a diagonally-set ridge piece. The present through-passage from the front door, now opening into a C19 stair hall, is probably on the site of a screens passage. The hall roof is unblackened and a wide Tudor-arched moulded bressumer, now re-set on its side in a chimneybreast below the chamber, may be from the missing hall fireplace, possibly on the site of the present bay window. (V.C.H.: Oxfordshire, Vol.VI, p.17; Buildings of England: Oxfordshire, p.455).

Listing NGR: SP5825522309