The Rectory

Summary

A rectory of around 1800.

History

The historic core of Kettering centres around St Peter and St Paul Church, Market Place to its north-west, and the immediate network of streets around it. Originally a Saxon village and later a market town, Kettering was for much of its history a relatively small linear settlement comprising what are now Gold Street, the High Street, Market Street, and Market Place. This core layout of medieval streets persists today, though the majority of the surviving buildings date from the C19 and early C20. Kettering was at the convergence of several important routes and benefited from this and from the wool industry, but it was the arrival in 1857 of the Midland Railway which enabled larger industries, particularly the boot and shoe making industry, to expand the town significantly beyond its historic core. The wider town is still characterised by numerous former factories and associated terraced housing.

A Rectory estate probably existed from the C13 and is first specifically mentioned in 1405 when it was said to be close to the market place. A building marked as ‘Parsonage’, a square building with a central courtyard, is recorded on this site in a map dated to the 1720s. The current building, used as the town’s rectory until a new rectory was constructed in the late C20, is roughly in the same position as the earlier parsonage, though it has a very different floor plan.

The design of the windows and western porch of the existing building is in keeping with a Georgian date, however, the atypical asymmetry of elevation and floor plan may imply that this structure was not newly built in the Georgian period and it may be a Georgian remodelling of an earlier building on the site. Excavations in the grounds of the rectory in 1998 revealed evidence of post-medieval buildings heavily disturbed by extensive C18 construction, immediately to the west of the present rectory building. A three-storey red-brick extension was added to the north-east of the rectory before 1884. Map evidence from 1884 onwards shows few changes in the footprint of the rectory from this date, though a conservatory (now removed) was erected on the east elevation by 1899.

The rectory was converted into six apartments from 2002, and fifteen private dwellings were built in the former grounds around it. The new development is now known as ‘Heritage Court’.

Details

MATERIALS: the building is of ironstone with quoins and plinth of cream-coloured, ashlar limestone and a slate roof covering. To the north-east is a three-storey extension in red brick.

PLAN: the building is made up of three separate elements. A square section to the south, possibly the oldest part of the house, has an ‘M’ profile roof arranged on an east-west alignment. A six-bay Georgian wing along the western façade has a hipped roof incorporating a northern bay of differing proportions. The three-storey element to the north-east is gabled to the north and south.

EXTERIOR: the main body of the building is of two storeys, with a three-storey north-east extension. The principal western elevation has six bays, with a wider northern bay and five bays in a symmetrical arrangement to the south. The southern two bays contain blind windows. The northern bay is significantly wider than the remaining five and separated from them by a scar or buttress of ironstone. The elevation comprises three six-over-six sash windows on the ground floor and four on the first floor. The flat headers of the windows are of narrow bricks or tiles. The jambs of the windows of the second, third and fourth bays have infilled surrounds of narrow bricks or tiles. The principal entrance in the fourth bay has a stone porch with two Doric columns and carved entablature.

The side or northern elevation is of rubblestone ironstone, with ashlar limestone quoins. There is a single six-over-six sash window with red brick headers at the left-hand side of the ground floor.

The rear eastern elevation is of a mixture of ironstone and limestone rubblestone, with ashlar limestone quoins. It comprises one six-over-six sash window on the ground floor and two on the first floor, with surrounds of red bricks and red brick flat arches, with a timber doorcase with a projecting cornice in a Georgian style which appears to be a C21 replica. An iron beam is embedded into the masonry between ground- and first-floor levels. The southern half of this elevation is blank with no windows or doors.

The side or southern elevation is also a mixture of ironstone and limestone rubblestone and faces the newly built Rectory and its garden. This elevation is arranged in five bays, with an entrance door in the third bay. All of the windows are six-over-six timber sashes with red brick surrounds. Between the windows, at ground and first floor level, timber blocks embedded in the masonry may be truncated timber members from an adjacent structure now lost.

The likely Victorian, red-brick extension to the north-east comprises two three-over-six sashes at ground-floor level on the north elevation, and an asymmetrical arrangement of windows across two bays and three storeys on the east elevation. The upper windows are uPVC replacements.

Listing NGR: SP8670278487

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

230091

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Other
Map of Kettering c. 1720, accessed 16 February 2021 at [http://britishlibrary.georeferencer.com/maps/a6b9887c-b961-47b1-8460-899d17408fc3/]
OS 25” Northamptonshire XXV.14 (Broughton; Kettering) (surveyed 1884, published 1887) accessed January 25 2021 at [https://maps.nls.uk/view/114477803]
OS 25” Northamptonshire XXV.14 (Broughton; Kettering) (revised 1899, published 1900) accessed January 25 2021 at [https://maps.nls.uk/view/114477806]
"Parishes: Kettering," in A History of the County of Northampton: Volume 3, ed. William Page (London: Victoria County History, 1930), 218-226. British History Online, accessed January 25 2021, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/northants/vol3/pp218-226.
Northampton Historic Environment records 7198/0/22 and 7198/7, accessed January 16 2021 at [https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?resourceID=1044&uid=MNN103211]

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