The Grange

The Grange is a house, formerly a rectory and preparatory school, dating from 1850 and 1861, with earlier origins, and incorporating 20th-century alterations. It was designed by William Butterfield for Reverend C.S. Holthouse. The building is constructed of ironstone ashlar with sandstone dressings, covered by a tile roof, and features various stone stacks. The plan is complex, forming an L-shape. The main range is two storeys and an attic, with three windows, and is joined by two-storey wings. The garden-facing principal range has three-light wood mullion and transom windows on the ground floor, and three-light casement windows to the first floor, flanked by a two-light casement window. These windows are topped by pointed relieving arches. Gabled half-dormers light the attic storey. Projecting at the right end is a schoolroom wing, featuring a two-storey gabled porch with a Caernarvon doorway on the ground floor, a stone outer staircase to the left, and a two-light arched casement window above. To the right of the porch are two four-light chamfered mullion windows on the ground floor, and gabled dormers to the first floor. To the left of the porch are single and two-light casement windows on the ground floor, with a lean-to of catslide roof in the angle between the ranges, containing corridor links. A large half-hipped dormer with a five-light Gothic timber tracery window is present on the left side of the first floor. The gable end of the principal range, facing the road, features a semi-canted bay window and a large stone stack. To the left of the gable end, a two-storey, single-window entrance wing has a gabled timber porch with inner and outer plank doors and ornamental hinges, 1-light windows to either side, and a three-light leaded casement window to the first floor. The left end elevation has a two-storey canted bay window. Internally, the house displays C19 broach-stop chamfered spine beams. A former school dining hall on the ground floor of the schoolroom wing was remodelled in the early 20th century. The schoolroom above has an arch-brace collar truss roof and a fine encaustic tile fireplace bearing the monogram of Reverend C.S. Holthouse, designed and presented by Minton. An obituary of Reverend C.S. Holthouse described the house as "one of the happiest specimens of Butterfield's domestic architecture." The original rectory was built upon the foundations of a small baker's house, purchased by Reverend C.S. Holthouse, and remodelled and extended at a cost of £1143, 15.04 (as documented in the Holthouse papers at Northamptonshire Record Office).