Old Rectory

The Old Rectory is a private house that was originally built around 1847, although the owner suggests it may date from the 1850s. Constructed from slate stone rubble with slate hanging on the south garden front, it features a steeply pitched slate roof with double gable ends at both the front and rear, overhanging eaves, and ornate shaped and pierced barge boards. Brick stacks are located on both gable ends. The building has a rectangular double depth plan with a side entrance that leads to an entrance hall, which separates two reception rooms at the front that overlook the garden, and a smaller service room behind them.

The house is two storeys high with an attic. The east entrance side is asymmetrical, featuring two gables, the larger one on the left, both adorned with ornate pierced and shaped bargeboards. To the right of centre, directly below the valley, there is a gabled porch that has the same ornate bargeboards, a dressed stone 4-centred arch, and a part-glazed inner door. Above the porch, there are two 12-pane sash windows, one on the ground floor and a larger one on the first floor, both with flat dressed stone arches and slate cills. Each gable has a cross-shaped slit window that lights the attic space.

The symmetrical south garden front is slate hung and features two double glazed doors on the ground floor, along with two 12-pane horned sash windows with crown glass on the first floor. The rear elevation has a double gabled end with two cross-shaped openings similar to those on the entrance front, but the glazing has been replaced with slate, and the shaped bargeboards are unpierced. There is a lean-to outshot on the right-hand side wall. The interior has not been inspected.

Emma Gifford, who later became Emma Hardy, moved to St Juliot Rectory in 1868 to join her sister Helen Catherine, the wife of Rev. Caddell Holder. The early chapters of Thomas Hardy's novel "A Pair of Blue Eyes" recall the author's visit to the rectory when he first met Emma.