The Old Vicarage

SHEEPSTOR SHEEPSTOR SX 56 NE 18/115 The Old Vicarage (formerly listed as Old Priest's House) 21.3.67 GV II

House, formerly likely to have been the vicarage or priests house. Circa early-mid C16 with C17 alterations and C20 additions. Rendered rubble walls. Slate roof gabled to left end and hiped to right. 2 rendered stacks - one at left end and one axial. Plan: 3-room-and-through-passage plan with lower end to the right. Hall stack backs onto the passage but this stack may date from a C17 re-modelling, when the newel stairs were added in a projection at the rear of the hall probably marked by the date-stone of 1658. Lean-to additions were made at the rear and the front of the higher end in the C20. Exterior: 2 storeys. Asymmetrical 3-window front mainly of C20 casements, the 1st floor windows are gabled dormers. To left of centre is circa late C16 or early C17 3-light granite mullion window with hollow chamfer. To right of centre is 4-centred granite arched doorway, hollow-chamfered which is probably original. 2-light granite mullion window above it. To left of this is a date-stone of 1658. C20 lean-to addition in front of left end and lean-to garage built against right end wall, formerly stable. At the rear to right of centre is a large gabled stair projection with granite framed light, in the right-hand wall is a very tiny circular spy-hole looking onto the churchyard. Outshuts to its left and right and a single storey C20 wing at the left-hand end. Interior: The hall has a granite framed fireplace with chamfered lintel (which is straight) and jambs. In the wall to the rear of the fireplace, no longer an outside wall due to the addition of an outshut, is a single light granite framed window which has a segmental arched head and recessed spandrels on the outside - this is probably the only surviving original window. At the rear of the hall there is a 4- centred granite doorway leading to the stone newel stairs. Adjoining this doorway is an unusual feature: a stone-lined recess with raised floor occupying the space underneath the stairs and with an arched opening - the purpose of which was presumably food storage. At the head of the stairs are 2 adjoining granite doorway in an integral arrangement sharing a jamb, one, however has a segmental head whereas the other is 4-centred. Another 4-centred granite doorway leads from the hall to the inner room. Despite a number of C20 additions this house preserves several interesting features and forms a good group in the centre of the village with the Church and village cross.

Listing NGR: SX5597967640