The Old House and studio

The Old House and studio

This is a former vicarage, now a house, with roots in the early 18th century but incorporating earlier fabric. The main building was extended in the mid and late eighteenth century, then altered throughout the nineteenth century and again in the mid twentieth century. The adjoining studio was originally stables, probably dating from the late eighteenth century, though it has been substantially altered in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Both the house and studio are built of Cornish killas stone quarried nearby, with some rendered and slate-hung areas. The roofs are laid with Delabole slate in scantles (oak-pegged slate arranged in diminishing courses and bedded in wet lime mortar) or as rag slate. The house has rendered red-brick chimneys.

The house has a complex plan built up over several phases: an early eighteenth-century wing on the west, a smaller mid-eighteenth-century wing to its south, and a mid to late eighteenth-century wing to the east. Small extensions on the north and west sides date probably from the late nineteenth century.

The house is mainly two storeys with attic rooms in the east wing. It is oriented north to south. The south elevation is the main approach, with a single-storey twentieth-century sunroom enclosing the entrance. To the west and extending south is a small extension known as the reading room, covered by a hipped roof. A many-paned nineteenth-century sash window lights the south elevation at ground and first-floor level, though the ground-floor opening appears to have been reduced in width. The east return elevation has slate-hanging to the upper floor and a further sash window at ground level. The south gable end of the west wing rises above the reading room.

The south elevation of the east wing spans three bays beneath a hipped roof. The ground floor has a large sash window with margin lights; the first floor has two sash windows and the attic has a centrally-placed casement. A hipped dormer-window on the west roof-slope also lights the attic. The south wall here is notably thicker and likely represents remnant fabric from an earlier, possibly medieval, building. The east elevation is symmetrical, with two hornless sash-windows on each floor. The first floor is rendered and there is a blocked central doorway on the ground floor. The north elevation has exposed stone with a red-brick lintel to a sash window that lights the internal stair, above a twentieth-century door. To the right is a late-nineteenth-century narrow two-storey rendered extension with a hipped roof, and beyond that the north gable end of the west wing, which has a small casement window to the first floor.

The ground level to the west is higher. Steps descend to a late-nineteenth-century single-storey gabled extension on the west elevation, flanked by sash windows on the ground and first floors. To the right is the reading room extension, which reduces in height to the west with a cat-slide roof and a single doorway.

Inside, the ground floor of the east wing contains a single room running the length of the building north to south. A scar in the ceiling and a blocked doorway on the east elevation show this was once divided into two rooms with a central passage, historically aligned with the foot of the eighteenth-century principal stair. The east windows retain mid-eighteenth-century timber shutters, and there is a mid to late eighteenth-century decoratively-carved timber fire-surround at the north end. On the west side is a deep alcove beside double-doors into the entrance hall. Within the hall stands an early-nineteenth-century principal staircase with a plain square-section newel and balusters. At the north end of the hall an arch leads to storage rooms. The east wing contains a lounge to the north and the main kitchen to the south, with external access via the west extension. The kitchen's south wall has a nineteenth-century service staircase with plain square-section newel and balusters. Below the stairs a door leads to a small lobby with a slate floor and through into the reading room, which has a low ceiling and a nineteenth-century cast-iron fire-surround on its north side. To the west is a small kitchen.

On the first floor, the east wing comprises two bedrooms. Further bedrooms and storage occupy the west part of the house, accessed from the principal stair. The bedroom above the reading room is reached by the service stair and has a mid-eighteenth-century bolection-moulded timber fire-surround on its north wall. A door beside the fireplace leads to a quarter-landing and the continuation of the principal stair to the attic. The attic contains two-panel eighteenth-century doors with HL hinges. Between the first floor and attic, doors are set within segmental openings, and there are cupboards with panelled doors. Throughout the house, the joinery relates to the different phases of construction, with most dating from the early to mid-nineteenth century.

To the north-west of the house, the studio is a two-storey three-bay building with a veranda and single-storey extension on its east side. The ground floor is used as a garage and ancillary accommodation. A staircase to the east leads to an open-plan studio occupying the entire first floor. The studio has sash windows on the east side, large roof lights on the north and east roof slopes, a floating first-floor door to the south, and boarded timber floors.