Parson'S Almshouses

Parson's Almshouses are almshouses built around 1796, provided by the Parson brothers. The building is constructed of red-brown brick, featuring some mathematical tiling on the south gable, and has a hipped plain tiled roof. It has a symmetrical layout with living accommodation on either side of a central hall and chapel. The structure is two storeys high, with brick dentilled eaves and stone coping on the central pedimented bay. There are two ridge stacks on either side of the centre and giant end pilaster piers topped with stone spheres.

The front of the building has nine bays, with four bays on either side of the central section, which includes a lead plinth supporting a wooden hexagonal cupola beneath a domed roof with a spherical finial. The windows are leaded casements with intersecting tracery set under 4-centre arched heads. Each side of the central projecting break has four windows on both floors, and there is a similar window in the centre of the first floor. The central entrance features a 4-centred arched head above a 20th-century ribbed and glazed door, framed by a stone roll-moulded surround.

In the tympanum of the pediment, there is a square stone plaque that records the date and names of the patrons. Originally endowed as an almshouse for poor widows, referred to as "sisters," the accommodation initially housed six women and a matron. This number was increased to twelve and then to thirteen in 1980 when a first floor was added to the chapel block. Photographs of the building are available in the National Monuments Record.