Glebe House

Glebe House, formerly known as The Rectory, is a house of exceptional architectural interest combining late 17th-century origins with substantial early 19th-century remodelling. The building is constructed of plastered local handmade brick laid to a random bond where exposed, with plastered brick chimney stacks and a slate roof.

The house follows a double-depth plan facing south, with a front and back room on either side of a central entrance hall and rear stair. The rear right (eastern) room serves as the kitchen. Both ground floor left (western) rooms were knocked together in the 20th century. All rooms have projecting end stacks. In the early 19th century, timber-framed dressing rooms were added to the first floor chambers, positioned outside on each end between the stacks and supported on raking struts. A single storey extension to the rear with an end stack dates to the late 19th century, with another stack projecting to the right (east). The main block is 2 storeys with attics in the roof space, and the front right (eastern) room has a cellar beneath it.

The symmetrical 3-window front is early 19th-century work. The outer windows are contained in shallow projecting curving full-height bays, each with 20-pane (8/12) sashes under 16-pane sashes, the latter fitted with shallow balconies of ornate wrought ironwork. The central first floor contains a 12-pane sash over the doorway. The door itself is late 19th-century part-glazed, but the overlight with its ornate radial pattern of cast iron glazing bars, the panelled reveals, and the doorcase with shallow hood on scroll brackets enriched with acanthus leaves are early 19th-century. The building features a deep coved eaves cornice with hipped roof ends. A small central glazed dormer in the roof centre contains a 19th-century horizontal-sliding sash beneath a glazed elliptical arch.

The side walls retain evidence of late 17th-century origins, including a plat band at first floor level. Each projecting dressing room contains a 12-pane sash. A 20th-century glazed door appears on the left (western) side, with the external cellar door towards the front on the right. The centre of the rear elevation at first floor level shows the original late 17th-century stair window, a large oak mullion-and-upper-transom frame that is flat-faced with a shallow internal chamfer. To the kitchen (east side) is a double set of 12-pane sashes with glazing bars thick enough to suggest 18th-century date. The roof returns around each side and along the rear with a central well.

The interior is of considerable quality. The basic structure is late 17th-century, although the positions of several doorways have been altered. The right (eastern) front room is lined with late 17th-century large-field bolection-moulded panelling in two heights and has a similar chimneypiece. In the kitchen, the fireplace is blocked with an original internal door to the cellar behind it. This door is of substantial construction: a very heavy and thick plank door on large strap hinges with two panels applied to the front. The two left (western) rooms have been knocked together and modernised in 20th-century Adams style, although the front chimneypiece is genuine. The good late 17th-century dogleg stair features closed string, square newel posts, moulded flat handrail, and heavy turned balusters. The upper floors contain mostly 19th-century joinery detail, including several chimneypieces. The roof shows work from both main building periods: the original house had parallel roofs across the front with heavy oak uncollared principals and trenched purlins, much mended with softwood and including king post trusses of circa 1800.