The Old Rectory

MELSONBY EAST ROAD NZ 2008-2108 (south side)

13/164 No 46 (The Old Rectory) 4.2.69 GV II

Rectory, now house. Late C16 - early C17, altered and enlarged 1706 with further alterations and additions 1789. 1706 work for Rev William Smith, Rector of Melsonby. Rubble with ashlar dressings, Westmorland slate roofs. 2 storeys, with basement and attic, 7 bays, double-depth plan. East elevation: 2 storeys. Chamfered offset plinth. Chamfered rusticated quoins. In fifth bay, part-glazed leaved door in architrave having bases set within doorcase which has acanthus bells on pilasters, and capitals with raised triglyphs and guttae, with gadrooning on outer edge merging into volutes at bases and capitals; cornice, broken pediment with worn cross, possibly from the church, resting in the tympanum. 15-pane sash windows formerly with mullion and raised transom, that above door wider and with bolection moulding on architrave and early-mid C18 thick glazing bars. Corniced ashlar stacks at left end and between sixth and seventh bays. Roof half-hipped to left. Rear: 3 storeys, 4 first-floor windows. On ground floor, between first and second bays, board door in chamfered ashlar surround; in fourth bay, board door in architrave. Sash windows with glazing bars in architraves, formerly cross windows as at front, on ground and first floors, and with thick glazing bars on ground floor; 9-pane unequally-hung sash windows in architraves on second floor; brick stack between third and fourth bays. To left, added 2-storey service range dated 1784. Left return: 3 storeys; to left, 1789 range; to right, late C16 - early C17 range rebuilt in 1706. Left range: on each floor a window in raised ashlar surround, a sash with glazing bars on ground and first floors, side-sliding sash on second floor with "1789" inscribed on lintel; bargeboards to gable. Right range: on the ground floor a 15-pane sash window in architrave; on the ground and first floors a blocked 3-light mullion window. Right return: 4 storeys. To the basement, five 2-light flat-faced mullion windows; on the ground and first floors, a narrow window and 2 sashes with glazing bars, all in architraves. On the second floor, 2 side-sliding sash windows in architraves, formerly 2-light flat-faced mullion windows. Interior: ground-floor room to right of door has deal fielded panelling and shutters, and eared and shouldered overmantel, with dentil cornice; open well staircase with turned balusters. In the house is a portrait of the Rev William Smith with a document recording that it was given in 1796 by one of his nieces, the wife of Rev Thomas Zouch, Vicar of Wycliffe, with the request that it should remain in the rectorial house, the east front and north-east end of which Rev Smith had built in 1706.

Listing NGR: NZ2007808328