The Old Vicarage

The Old Vicarage, Bremhill

This house, a former vicarage, has a 15th-century core with significant 17th-century additions. It was substantially altered after 1818 for Reverend William Lisle Bowles and underwent further alterations in the later 19th century or around 1900. The building is constructed of roughcast with ashlar dressings and has a stone slate roof.

The roofline features a cruciform five-shaft ridge stack, probably 17th-century with some shafts now missing, a rendered east stack dating to around 1900, and diagonally shafted stacks at the west end and north-west corner. The building rises to two storeys with an attic.

The plan and fenestration have been substantially altered since an illustration in Bowles' History of Bremhill dating to 1825. The west end has been built out, and the ridge stack marks the division between the earliest eastern section and the 17th-century cross-gabled addition to the west, which was extended further westward around 1900.

Bowles' alterations included pierced parapets modelled on Stourton church, a two-storey range added to the north front (dated 1820), and a central Gothic porch on the south (dated 1818). The south front now presents rough symmetry about a central Tudor-arched porch with two coped gables, coved cornice and pierced parapets, a dripcourse and raised plinth. Windows are generally paired sashes in ovolo-moulded mullioned frames, most likely post-1825 in date.

To the right of centre, a gable contains a 17th-century attic two-light window, paired first-floor sashes with hoodmould, and a ground-floor large canted bay dating to around 1820 with full-height sashes on each side, a French window to the front and pierced parapet. Further right are two plain upper windows and a ground-floor window, formerly paired sashes with later altered glazing. To the left of centre, a gable has a renewed attic two-light window and a large two-storey canted bay with sashes in ovolo-moulded frames. The section to the left, added post-1825, originally had paired sashes on each floor, but the lower pair are now blocked with an inserted timber oriel dating to around 1900.

A service range extends to the east of the main house. The north front's roofline shows a clear division on each side of the ridge stack. The eastern section has a 17th-century attic mullion window in a projecting gable and a two-storey addition dating to 1820 built in front of the original gable. This section is distinguished by octagonal ashlar angle turrets with open crown caps, pierced parapets, and angle pinnacles to the centre section. The fenestration here has been much altered from the 1825 illustration, which shows a ground floor with two-arched entry; however, the Y-traceried timber window to the ground floor left is as illustrated. The right octagonal turret was not shown in the 1825 plan. The western section has undergone more complete alterations since 1825; the original 17th-century cross-gabled form with corner stack remains visible only in the north gable, which has new mullion windows, whilst the west gable has been extended westward with a large north-side stack.

The interior was not inspected, but one bay of a 15th-century roof survives at the east end, featuring a fine crown post truss.

The house may be associated with a medieval grange of Malmesbury Abbey, though Bremhill Manor has also been suggested as the original site.

Reverend William Lisle Bowles was vicar of Bremhill from 1804 to 1845 and was a poet, antiquarian and theorist of the picturesque whose ideas were influential in literary discussions on the nature of beauty and the relative importance of the natural and the artificial. Charles Lamb, William Wordsworth and Thomas Moore were visitors to the vicarage, around which Bowles laid out a picturesque garden (now largely vanished) with winding paths, grottoes, Gothic seats and a hermit's cave.