Old Rectory

A rectory, now house, dated 1860 and built in the asymmetrical Gothic style reminiscent of contemporary designs by Butterfield. The building has undergone some later alterations and 20th-century repairs.

The structure is constructed of roughly coursed limestone rubble with stone dressings and decorative brick banding. The roof is of shaped slates with raised coped verges, crestings, and gable stacks. An attached outhouse features a triple Roman tiled roof.

The front elevation is two storeys and four bays. The gable end to the left has a shallow external stack with buttress. The second bay contains a gabled wooden porch with pierced bargeboards and a pointed arched chamfered door opening with the date displayed on a banner above. The door itself is pointed segmental-headed with decorative strap hinges, and above it sits an 8-pane sash window in a chamfered architrave. The third and fourth bays have ground floor 2-light windows of 4 panes each light with slender shafts as mullions, surrounded by pointed arched limestone with brick banding and quatrefoils above. At first floor level are two 8-pane sashes; the left one has a similar pointed arched head and quatrefoil, with a steeply pointed gable above featuring brick banding and two quatrefoils. Paired brick banding runs across the entire facade at mid-ground and first floor level.

The left return has a projecting gable end with a ground floor 3-light window featuring 4-pane sashes in each light and a brick and limestone relieving arch. Above this is a paired 8-pane sash with a pointed arch in brick and limestone. In the gable is a 2-light trefoil-headed window with a brick relieving arch and paired limestone string courses, topped with a weathervane. To the right of this section, the ground floor has a canted bay with plate-glass sashes, one of which is lowered as a door to the left. Similar paired 8-pane sashes at first floor lack an arch above. Paired brick and limestone string courses run across the entire facade.

The right return displays paired strings, with a first floor 8-pane sash on the right. A trefoil-headed lancet in the gable end features a brick relieving arch and string course, with a blind circle above it having a brick relieving arch. Attached to the right is a single-storey outhouse with a triple Roman tiled roof and garage doors.

At the rear, a two-storey block to the left has a pitched roof with a ground floor opening (formerly an 8-pane sash, now replaced by a metal-framed light) and an 8-pane sash at first floor. A gabled rear wing has a ground floor 3-pane sash with margin glazing and a brick and limestone pointed relieving arch. The first floor features paired 8-pane sashes with a similar double relieving arch and paired string courses at both ground and first floor levels. A 4-pane lancet in the gable end has a pointed brick arch. To the right is a 3-pane light at ground floor and a tall mullion and transom window at first floor (serving as a stair light) with trefoil heads and a glazed circle in the upper section, set within a brick relieving arch. An external stack rises into the gable to the right, topped with a brick pointed arch over a recessed circle and paired string courses.

The interior features robust vine leaf and bunch of grapes cornices in rooms to the left. The front left room contains a fine fireplace with marble colonnettes to the sides and tiling. The front right room is lined with panelling said to have come from the Bishop's Palace at Wells around 1870, and has a narrower similar cornice. A photograph from around 1910 shows the rectory formerly had a canopied verandah at first floor level.

This is a fine example of an intact mid-Victorian rectory.