Sycamore House And Adjoining Railings

Sycamore House is an early 19th century rectory, now a house, located in High Bickinton, with an adjoining service range and railings. The main house is rendered, likely over stone rubble, with a hipped scantle-slate roof and brick lateral and ridge stacks. The service range has gable-ended asbestos-slate roofs and rendered and brick end stacks.

The house is approximately square, oriented at right angles to the road (facing south-east), with an integral stack to the left and a pair of axial stacks off-centre to the right. The service range adjoins at right angles to the left, running parallel to the road. The main house is two stories high, while the service range is one and two stories.

The front elevation is asymmetrical with three bays, featuring 12-pane and 16-pane glazing bar sash windows with painted cills. A recessed doorway in the middle bay has an early 19th century six-panelled door, a margin-light rectangular overlight, and a bracketed lattice wooden porch. The right-hand return front is asymmetrical with full-height pilaster strips and 12-pane glazing bar sashes with cills (a central ground floor window is blank). The service range has an asymmetrical front with wooden casements and sashes, a large gabled dormer to the left, and a half-glazed door with a bracketed lattice wooden porch. A short pitched-roofed link connects to the main block at the rear of the left-hand end.

In front of the service range stands a low stone wall with cast-iron railings featuring circular section railings, square standards, and curved stanchions to the rear. A central cast-iron gate has spearhead railings. A stone wall at the right-hand end of a small garden links the railings with the service range, containing a plank door.

Panelled internal window shutters were noted during a survey in January 1988. Sycamore House replaced the former rectory, now known as Beechwood House, likely in the early to mid 19th century.