The Old Glebe House

The Old Glebe House is a house with medieval origins, potentially incorporating some 17th-century walling. It was substantially altered between 1782 and 1787 for the Reverend John Churchill by the architect John Meadows, further refurbished around 1840, and extended in the mid-19th century. Built of plastered stone rubble with stone rubble stacks topped with 19th and 20th-century brick, it has a coated slate roof. The building’s layout is irregular.

The house faces the garden to the south, with a double-depth plan and three principal rooms arranged across the front. A large reception or drawing room projects to the right, with canted sides and a rear stack. Behind it is an entrance hall and main stair, with the main entrance located in the rear of the right (east) return wall. A smaller central room has an axial stack, and a breakfast or dining room projects slightly forward at the former left (west) end, with an end stack. These rooms are accompanied by corridors, a service stair, and service rooms to the rear. A late 19th-century service block extension, with parallel roofs aligned with the main block, extends from the left end and around the rear of the building.

The house is mostly two storeys high, but the slope on which it is built makes the original left end three storeys, with attics and a cellar beneath the central room. The main garden front has three uneven bays, with a fourth added in the mid-19th century. Both the left and central rooms have late 19th-century glass-sided porches; the latter is larger, with canted sides. The left room has 16-pane sashes to the first and second floors, and an attic casement in the gable. The centre room has a 20-pane (8/12) sash on the first floor and a similar dormer casement. The canted bay to the right features full-height 24-pane sashes on all sides on the ground floor, and 20-pane sashes above. A flat stucco platband runs at first floor level, extending around the right return. Projecting eaves are supported by pairs of shaped brackets. The main roof is hipped. The right end wall is largely blank, except for an original porch towards the rear and a gable-ended section with a 12-pane sash. The left-end extension has 20th-century casements and sashes. The original rear elevation includes first-floor 20-pane sashes, but the right (west) end has a gabled late 19th-century extension containing 12-pane sashes in segmental arches.

Inside, much original joinery remains, including the decorative staircase with an open string, shaped brackets, stick balusters, a mahogany handrail, a curtail step, and a scroll wreath. Most of the fireplaces have been replaced. Historical records show the site was documented back to the 13th century, and accounts exist detailing renovations by John Meadows between 1782 and 1787.