Abbey Rectory

Abbey Rectory, likely a former rectory now divided into two dwellings, was probably built in 1849 and may have been designed by James Wilson. The building is constructed of limestone ashlar with double-pitched slate roofs, forward-facing shaped gables, and tall, moulded stacks. It is of Jacobean style and has a double-depth plan with a service wing to the right.

The main two-storey, almost symmetrical front has three windows in the central range and three windows in the right wing. The arrises of the three-pane casement windows are stop-chamfered. A central parapet features pierced diagonal quatrefoils with a shield at the centre and an angel below a moulded string course. This parapet sits above a two-light stone mullioned window on the first floor, above an enclosed porch with moulded coping to a stepped parapet, boars’ head gargoyles, and a Tudor arch over two vertically panelled double doors. A central moulded string course rises to each side, forming triangles below elaborate, parapeted gables, each topped with stone finials and trefoil-headed attic windows. The left gable is larger, with a square finial, a trefoil-headed attic window, and stone mullions and transoms to a two-light first floor window and a ground floor rectangular bay with a further castellated two-light canted bay window. The right gable has an octagonal finial, horizontal glazing bars to a trefoil-headed two-over-two-pane attic window, a first floor sill course, and two-light stone mullioned and transomed windows to each lower floor.

The lower right wing (No. 17A) has a castellated parapet over a coved string course and a sill course to three two-over-two-pane sash windows, paired to the right, on the first floor, with similar paired windows on the ground floor. A door is located in a single-storey lean-to on the right. The interior of the building has not been inspected.