The Old Rectory And Rectory Cottage

The Old Rectory and Rectory Cottage are a pair of dwellings, originally a late medieval rectory, located in Whitestaunton village. The east end of the main dwelling was rebuilt around 1835, while the original structure’s walls were raised, reroofed, and refenestrated as a service wing, subsequently divided into two dwellings in the mid-20th century, complete with a north extension. The building is constructed of random rubble local stone, previously rendered, with Ham stone dressings. It has double Roman tiled roofs, with the west end (Rectory Cottage) having a lower, independently roofed section and a higher 19th-century range with a cross wing and decorative ridge tiles, coped verges, and a brick stack on the west gable.

The original house was an open hall house, later divided into a three-cell plan with a cross passage, and the inner room was rebuilt as a staircase hall. A reception room occupies the cross wing to the east. The south front has two storeys and a 3:2 bay arrangement. Casements with wooden lintels are on the left, while a gabled window with stone mullions is on the right. A further cross gable features a similar three-light mullioned and transomed window. Ground floor windows from the 20th century flank a blocked doorway, and a three-light mullioned and transomed window extends to the ground on the right. A crenellated Ham stone porch, displaying a coat of arms of the Elton family with the date 1837 (partly eroded), features a depressed Tudor arch opening with decorated spandrels and a coeval nine-pane glazed door with sidelights and a rectangular light above. A return side has three bays with a gabled centre and mullioned and transomed windows on the first floor; the ground floor has only one bay to the right. The rear elevation, which serves as the entrance front to Rectory Cottage, retains some 19th-century leaded iron casements and a Tudor-style studded plank door.

A 19th-century boundary wall of random rubble chert stone stands adjacent to the southwest corner of Rectory Cottage and extends south for about 10 metres. This wall incorporates the remains of a 16th-century Tudor arch head doorway with incised spandrels, a fly hoodmould, and a crenellated top; it may have originally been the entrance to the Rectory, reset during the house’s enlargement. Interior inspection was not possible, but Rectory Cottage is said to contain a fine Ham stone moulded depressed four-centred arch fireplace with shouldered jambs, beams with stop-chamfered spine beams with run-out stops, and keeled stars. Evidence of a dividing partition that runs east-west and an unchamfered beam with bead moulding running north-south is also present. The Rectory's history is detailed in the Victoria County History, documenting enlargement in the 1830s by the incumbent, W. T. Elton, son and brother-in-law of successive lords of the manor.