The Old Rectory And Rectory Cottage

THE OLD RECTORY AND RECTORY COTTAGE, YATTON

A prebendal house dating from the mid-15th century, with later alterations including a mid-19th century rear wing that is now a separate private dwelling known as Rectory Cottage and included within this listing.

The Old Rectory is built of rendered stone rubble with limestone dressings, slate roofs with ridge and gable stacks and raised coped verges. Rectory Cottage is also built in stone rubble but no longer rendered, with a slate roof and ridge stack.

The building has an irregular plan consisting of a hall with a cross wing to the left, porch to the right, and an off-centre rear stair tower. Rectory Cottage has a simple two-room rectangular plan with a later 20th-century extension to its east.

The Old Rectory is a two-storey building. The north front has two projecting wings with gable ends, the front left having a pointed arched door in a hollow-moulded surround with a studded door bearing raised fillets and strap hinges, and a small single cusped ogee light to its right. The next gable end has two stone mullion and transom windows to the ground floor with chamfered surrounds containing 19th-century lights, and a three-light stone mullioned window at first floor level to the left of the flue. This wing displays weathered diagonal buttresses to the corner. Its inner side has a similar ground floor mullion and transom window, and a blocked first floor single light with cusped ogee head and quatrefoils in its upper tracery. The main range has two similar mullion and transom windows at ground floor level, that to the right blocked, and a similar window at first floor level to the left with original 15th-century tracery featuring cusped ogee heads and quatrefoils. A porch to the right contains a four-centred arched doorway with jamb-shafts and hollow mouldings; the inner doorway has a four-centred arched head with roll and hollow mouldings and stone benches to the sides. At first floor the porch has a two-light transomed window and a similar buttress to the left corner.

The right return on the west elevation has a small single-storey later addition with pitched roof, formerly a garage now in domestic use. The gable end visible behind it has battered walls. The left return at the east gable end of the main range has a cross wing extending both left and right. In its centre is a 20th-century four-centred arched opening with a glazed door, a narrow single light to its right and a two-light casement in stone surround to its left. At first floor there is a similar two-light casement and a smaller two-light casement to the attic in plain stone surround. To the left at first floor is a segmental-headed two-light casement with leaded lights, and to the right a 20th-century two-light casement in moulded stone surround with buttresses left and right and a crocketed stack to the gable end.

The rear elevation to the south has a four-centred arched moulded doorway to the left, now fitted with a French window, two mullion and transom windows at ground floor level with plate-glass to the right and blocked to the left with cusped tracery remaining, and two similar windows at first floor with tracery, that to the right blocked. The inner side of the rear stair tower has a four-centred arched chamfered doorway, now glazed as a window, and at first floor level a 19th-century two-light window with trefoil heads with a buttress to the corner.

The attached two-storey 19th-century rear wing, Rectory Cottage, has a west front with two sixteen-pane sashes with segmental heads at ground floor level and a gabled dormer above, with an entrance porch to its right containing a door with raised fillets. Its rear gable end to the south has a 20th-century bow window at ground floor level with a two-light casement above. A late-20th-century two-storey extension to its right is not of special interest.

The front porch leads to a narrow entrance hall where the rear door retains inside a French window studded with raised fillets and strap hinges with a segmental rere-arch. The room in the central range has a framed ceiling of four bays by two, one bay now over the entrance hall, with moulded beams and a fireplace with depressed four-centred arch, shafts to the sides, cusped panels to the rear and a moulded mantel. The four-centred arched opening to the front of the cross wing has a panelled cusped soffit and jamb-shafts. The end room in the main range has a curved beam over the fireplace, a pointed arched chamfered door to the rear and a former door to the 19th-century wing now Rectory Cottage. At the rear of the main room a pointed arched opening with panelled cusped soffit and rere-arch leads to the stair tower, which contains a 19th-century replacement winder stair. The first floor contains a passage running from front to rear of the house. The door to the front main room has heavy raised fillets set in a four-centred arched hollow-moulded surround. At the rear of the passage is a pointed segmental-headed door; the room to the left has an 18th-century panelled door in moulded surround, a fireplace with square head, shafts to sides and cornice, and a four-centred arched doorway with wave and hollow mouldings to a chamber over the porch. 20th-century stairs lead to the attic, which contains a roof structure with arched-braces, cambered collars, one row of purlins and windbraces over the main range, though not fully visible.

The Old Rectory is a former prebendal house with Gothic architectural detailing, built adjacent to the south-east of the Church of St Mary the Virgin. During the 15th century the church was significantly altered and enlarged by the Newton family in 15th-century Gothic style. Its tracery corresponds exactly to that at Tickenham Court. In the mid-19th century the Old Rectory was extended to the east with a dairy and servants wing, possibly including a kitchen. In the late-20th century this wing became a separate private dwelling and was further extended to its east.

The building is an outstanding example of a mid-15th century prebendal house, a building type that rarely survives on a national level. Its prestigious use of materials and exceptionally high quality carving and architectural detailing are rarely found surviving in domestic buildings of this early date and confirm the high status this building possessed at the time. Though little is known of its history, it is strongly associated with the adjacent Church of St Mary the Virgin, which was extensively altered and embellished in the 15th century by the Newton family in similar Gothic style, and as such forms an interesting architectural group. Rectory Cottage, while attached to the Old Rectory and of some interest in its own right, possesses a lesser order of significance than the main house.