The Priests House, Adjacent To The Church Of St Mary And St Wilfrid

The Priests House, located adjacent to the Church of St Mary and St Wilfrid, is a presbytery and attached stable court built between 1840 and 1841, with some alterations made in the late 20th century. Designed by Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, the building is constructed from coursed squared red sandstone with ashlar sandstone dressings, featuring rebuilt brick chimneys and a hipped roof covered in slate. The plan is essentially square but has a more complex form due to projecting elements and the stable court to the east.

The building exhibits an austere Victorian Gothic style. The west elevation has two storeys and two bays, with a steeply-pitched roof over an advanced single-storey porch on the left side. This porch has a coped gable and a chamfered pointed doorway arch, with a planked and studded door and lancet lights on the side walls. Above the porch, there is a two-light chamfer-mullioned window with arch-headed lights and a quoined surround, along with stacked three-light windows to the right side.

The south elevation, facing the garden, consists of three bays, featuring a three-light window on the ground floor to the left and a straight-sided four-light bay to the right, with two two-light windows above the bay. The north elevation is divided into three parts: to the right is a hipped gable matching the west front, to the left is a lower two-storey service wing with a gable facing east, and in the centre are two bays each with a two-light ground floor window. Flanking these bays are shallow single-storey projecting service rooms. Most windows originally had undivided sash frames, though some have been replaced with 20th-century casements.

The east elevation includes the service wing that encloses a small yard, and further east, there is an attached stable court that has been converted into a parish room and garages. The interior retains its original layout and features, including panelled doors, a stick baluster staircase, and two ground floor hearths with surrounds that incorporate attached columns with foliated capitals supporting a mantle cornice. The plans and elevations of this early Pugin presbytery are part of the Myers' collection.