The Old Vicarage

The Old Vicarage

Located on the north-east side of Silver Street in Buckfastleigh, this building began as a vicarage around the 1780s and has been in use as a private house. It was enlarged with an addition dating to around the 1830s. The structure is built of local grey and brown slatestone rubble with granite dressings, topped by a natural slate roof of small slates, gabled at the ends. The end stacks have rendered shafts finished with cornices.

The main building is set on rising ground with a double-depth plan, two rooms wide with a basement kitchen. A secondary block was added at the north-west end. The main block rises to two storeys over a basement level.

The principal entrance elevation faces north-west and is symmetrical with three bays, approached by a short flight of steps up to a narrow central round-headed doorway. The recessed two-leaf front door has three panels per leaf with the upper panels fielded, and is topped by a deep fanlight with three-pane overlight below, featuring spoke glazing bars. The ground-floor window to the right is probably an original 16-pane sash, with a 12-pane sash positioned above the front door. The ground-floor window to the left and the two outer first-floor windows are likely replacement 12-pane sashes with horns. Below the granite plinth sit two basement windows with granite dressings.

The garden elevation, visible from various points in Buckfastleigh, also features three bays and displays a parapet with lead coping and platbands below the parapet and at first and ground-floor levels. Three ground-floor 12-pane sashes light this side; the outer first-floor windows are horned replacement sashes, while the central first-floor window is an 8-pane horned replacement sash. Three basement windows are present: the left-hand window has lost its glazing, the right-hand window is glazed with a two-light casement, and the centre window, partly concealed behind a late 19th or early 20th century conservatory, is an unglazed iron-framed casement. A glazed lean-to conservatory has been built against the centre of this elevation.

To the right stands a lower-roofed one-bay block with a lean-to roof behind a parapet above a moulded string, glazed with six-over-three-pane sashes set within brick arches. The left return is stuccoed and features an exceptionally tall round-headed stair light, four panes wide and sixteen panes high, with Gothick glazing bars in the head. The right return of the main block has a pretty roundel window in the gable with a granite architrave, its geometric glazing bars arranged with a square of small panes around a central roundel. Below this, the return of the one-bay north-west addition has a lean-to roof and contains a plank doorway with modest Gothick panelling flanked by two-light casements of six panes per light. Above is a two-light first-floor Gothick window with three panes per light and arched glazing bars in the head.

The interior shows an attractive arrangement with some evidence for re-partitioning of the ground floor in the early 19th century. Reeded doorcases, panelled doors, and deep skirtings characterise the rooms. The principal ground-floor rooms are fitted with 19th-century marble chimneypieces, while plainer versions occupy the upper storeys. A stick baluster stair with ramped handrail extends to the attic, which is roofed with a tie beam and queen-post roof, fixed with pegs, designed to accommodate an unusually wide span and servants' rooms in the attic. The cellar preserves a reused early 18th-century two-panel door and curious timber which may be a reused arched brace from a roof.