The Old Rectory Including Garden Wall Adjoining at Rear

The Old Rectory is a house with a mid-17th century core, significantly remodelled in the 18th and 19th centuries, and with 20th-century renovations ongoing at the time of a 1985 survey. The construction is of rendered colourwashed cob and stone, with slate roofs, and features projecting rendered end stacks to the main range, along with two stone stacks to the rear wings.

The house’s development has been complex. What is believed to be a mid-17th century room remains on the ground floor of the main range. This was remodelled in the early 18th century as a three-storey range, originally featuring Venetian windows at the rear and some good-quality 18th-century joinery. In the early 19th century, a crosswing was added to the right of the main range, creating a new entrance into a stair hall. A rear left wing may have formed part of the original 17th-century house and served as a service wing in the 18th century. It has been refenestrated with Gothic windows on its side, believed to have been inserted in the early 20th century and originating from a chapel. A rear left block connects the rear wing and the main range and has a hipped roof at the left end with a small crosswing.

The main range has a 2:1 window arrangement with regular fenestration. The early 19th-century crosswing is a two-storey gabled structure, notable for an idiosyncratic bell turret at the apex of the gable. This bell turret is two-tiered, with corbels supporting fluted pilasters and a round-headed arch below a four square-slated pentice. Pyramidal slated roofing is supported on open round-headed timber arches above the pentice. The central panelled front door is in the crosswing, flanked by timber pilasters, a cornice, and a first-floor 16-pane sash, with a similar sash on the left return. The main range has a ground-floor 2-light casement with eight panes per light, and first and second-floor windows are 16-pane sashes, with an eight-pane stair window on the second floor to the right. Venetian windows are at the rear of the main range, and the rear wing’s Gothic windows have replaced glazing bars, though the window apertures apparently haven’t been altered.

Inside, a ground-floor room of the original main range has a large fireplace with hollow-chamfered granite jambs and a replaced granite lintel. Various 18th-century panelled doors and doorframes remain. To the rear of the rear wing, the remnants of an early 19th-century picturesque garden feature survive: a curved cob wall with a large rounded niche studded with small stones arranged in patterns.