Kilvert'S Parsonage

Kilvert's Parsonage is a house built in 1739 for Adam Tuck, possibly incorporating an earlier structure, and was enlarged around 1840. The building features squared rubble stone with ashlar dressings on the west front and roughcast side walls. It has a stone slate hipped roof at the front with rear stacks. The west front is a fine formal two-storey structure with three windows, a slight centre break, and an ashlar pediment. It has an ashlar plinth, sill courses for each floor, and bands over the window heads, with the upper band positioned beneath a moulded eaves cornice. The centre break is accentuated by flush quoins, while the outer angles are marked by raised ashlar piers.

The windows consist of twelve-pane sashes on either side in architraves, with an arched-headed centre window also in an architrave featuring moulded imposts. The centre door is a six-panel design with a fanlight, set in a bolection moulded surround that includes heavy impost blocks and a keystone, although the date is obscured. This door is sheltered by a shallow Tuscan porch supported by two columns with pilaster responds and a flat entablature.

The roughcast south side has a three-window range of twelve-pane sashes in architraves and one hipped dormer. The roughcast north side includes a side-wall stack and a three-storey elevation with various sashes. There is a single-storey outbuilding to the east, which connects at right angles to a stable and coach house featuring a half-hipped roof, a door window, and a cambered-head coach entry.

The interior is said to have panelled features with enriched mouldings, a panelled stair hall, and stairs with three balusters per tread, one of which is twisted. The house was purchased as the Rectory for Langley Burrell by Squire Ashe in 1855, who demolished the 18th-century rectory by the church. The Rev Robert Kilvert, who died in 1882, was the rector from 1855, and his son Francis, born in 1840, grew up here and lived as his father's curate during the period documented in his diaries. At the time of the survey in November 1986, the property was noted to be in neglect and overgrown with ivy.