The Old Vicarage and associated boundary wall to west

Summary

Former Vicarage built in 1849 to designs by T. C. Hine of Nottingham.

Reasons for Designation

The Old Vicarage is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

*Architectural interest: it is a very early example of the type of detached, asymmetrical, Gothic house which continued to influence domestic architecture throughout the C19. Its broken frontage with its profusion of gables, roof pitches and triple chimney stacks has distinct elevational interest, and its composition carefully articulates the hierarchy of rooms within.

*Architect: it is one of the earliest works by T. C. Hine, a Nottingham-based architect of national importance with many listed buildings to his name.

*Interiors: it has internal features of high design quality, notably the stone staircase with its lancet openings, and elaborate Gothic fireplaces and door furniture.

*Historic interest: it was built at a time when the Anglican Church was in turmoil, and responded to the threat from the evangelical movement and Catholic cause by carrying out church restoration on a vast scale and building many rectories for resident clergy.

History

The village of Kinoulton was served only by a curate until the 1840s when the increased population of the parish led to the appointment of a vicar, Thomas Charleward. The Reverend William Parsons, Architectural Commissioner to the Diocese of Lincoln, commissioned Thomas Chambers Hine (1813-99) to design a vicarage on the five acre plot in the middle of the village. Hine is a significant, Nottingham-based architect who first came to prominence in 1848 when he won an open competition, sponsored by the Society for Improving the Condition of Labouring Classes, with his design for labourers’ cottages. Hine’s success encouraged him to establish his own practice, and The Old Vicarage must therefore have been one of his earliest commissions. This was soon followed by others, including the Corn Exchange, Nottingham (1850), Park Estate, Nottingham (1850), and Flintham Hall, Nottinghamshire (1851-54). His later works include the conversion of Nottingham Castle into a museum (1875-78) and Nottingham Railway Station (1898). His son, George Thomas Hine, joined his practice in 1867.

The Old Vicarage remained in the possession of succeeding vicars until the 1950s when the parishes of Kinoulton and neighbouring Hickling were amalgamated and the incumbent moved to the latter village. The house was thereafter occupied by tenants and then left derelict until its restoration in 1988-1990. It won the 1990 Nottinghamshire Building Preservation Trust’s Harry Johnson award for the best restoration of an old building. The house has been altered during the course of its restoration. On the north elevation the single-storey scullery and tradesmen’s entrance, located to the right of the projecting entrance bay, has been replaced with a glazed lean-to structure, resembling a conservatory, but in fact erected to light the corridor behind. The servants’ stair originally rose from the cellar to be accessed on the north side of this corridor but it has been rebuilt to be accessed from a room on the south side of the corridor. A new spiral staircase, situated under the glazed lean-to, has also been built to provide new access to the cellar. Some of the windows have been replaced, with the large ones on the south elevation having been purpose-made. On the west elevation, a casement window has been inserted into the gable end at ground and first-floor level. Missing slate tiles and ridge tiles have been replaced, and the chimney stacks have been rebuilt in new brick with new clay pots. Some of the joinery is original but a number of internal doors have been dismantled and re-hung with new stiles, and parts of the skirting boards have been replaced. Since the restoration, a narrow, single-storey range has been built linking the house on its west side to the former coach house. This had previously been renovated to provide domestic accommodation.

Details

MATERIALS
Red brick laid in English bond with Ancaster stone dressings, under steeply pitched, slate-clad roofs with ridge tiles.

PLAN
The house has an asymmetrical, approximately rectangular plan with a C20, narrow single-storey range linking the house on its west side to the former coach house.

EXTERIOR
The Old Vicarage is a picturesque, neo-Gothic, house characterised by a multi-gabled roofscape, tall chimney stacks and lancet windows. It is approached via a driveway leading to the north elevation which forms the entrance front. The house has two-storeys with an attic storey in the west part. From the left, there is a coped gabled bay which has stone kneelers at the foot of the gable and half way along its coping, as do most of the gables. The first-floor window is a triple-lancet with trefoil heads in a square-headed stone architrave, as are all the lancets. Above this, in the gable head, is a stone-carved trefoil. On the left-hand side of the bay are stone quoins and a buttress with stone offsets. Next is the projecting entrance bay which has the same stone quoins and buttresses. The left hand side presents a gable end containing a double-leaf plank and batten door in an elaborate, moulded Gothic arch surround which has a pair of small attached columns with foliate capitals and head stops. There is a triple lancet window on the first floor, and a Greek cross in vitrified brick in the gable head which is surmounted by a finial in the form of a Celtic cross. On the right hand side of the entrance bay, which has a dentilled cornice, there is a quadruple lancet on the ground floor, and a stone armorial tablet above. The left return wall has a single lancet on the ground floor, and the right return has a small window with timber glazing bars on the ground floor and a three-pane casement window on the first floor; both have moulded surrounds, like all the casement windows. To the right of the entrance bay is the late-C20 glazed lean-to, above which is a gabled dormer with paired lancets across the eaves, and a wide ridge stack. On the last bay, which is slightly recessed, the tall projecting chimney stack has three recessed panels surmounted by three tall multi-facetted flues. At ground-floor level there is a single-storey gabled projection lit by a two-pane casement window. Attached to this is a single-storey range with a pitched roof, lit by a two-pane casement window with a segmental-arched head and brick sill. The west gable end is lit by two-pane casements at ground, first and attic level, and has stairs leading down to the cellar.

The south elevation is plainer and is lit by casement windows, most of which are late-C20 replicas. From the left, there are three-pane casements at ground- and first-floor level, followed by a French window and a two-pane casement above. This is followed by a projecting gabled bay which has a square-cut bay window containing a late-C20 replica bordered French window. The bay has a stone-coped parapet under which are cornerstones carved with a trefoil. There is a three-pane casement above and a two-pane casement at attic level. Next, there is a narrow recess which has a bordered, glazed door and a vertical window above, and this is followed by a slightly projecting gabled bay, buttressed on the right hand side. It has a double-height, square-cut bay window with stone off-sets and similar detailing to the previous bay. The large bordered sash window on the ground floor is a late-C20 replica, above which is a three-pane casement. The gable head has a diamond motif in vitrified brick. On the east gable end is a projecting chimney stack, similar to the one in the last bay of the north elevation.

An early-C21 single-storey, flat-roofed, glazed range links the west side of the house to the coach house which has been converted for garaging and domestic use. It is situated at right angles to the main house and has a long plan with a central gabled projection on the east side. The brickwork shows signs of extensive rebuilding with blocked and altered openings, and all the windows are late-C20. The glazed range and former coach house are not of special interest.

INTERIOR
The entrance porch leads through a pointed arched door, which has three upper glazed panels, into a hall with a flag-stone floor, stone skirting, and softwood ceiling joists. Adjacent to the door is another pointed-arched opening, leading to the main, quarter-turn, stone staircase, which has a broached stone pier. To the left of this arch, the wall enclosing the staircase is pierced by two lancet windows with trefoil heads in a stone surround with raking sills incorporating a carved banister. The return wall is pierced by the top half of a lancet, its raking sill following the pitch of the stairs. The hall leads through a pointed-arched door on the right along the corridor to the former service rooms at the west end of the house, and to the two south-facing reception rooms at the east end. These have six-panelled doors which are three panels wide, longer in the top half, with chamfers and stops around the panel edges, and wonderfully elaborate Gothic door furniture. In both rooms there is a moulded plaster cornice, panelled window soffits and shutters, which have the same chamfers and stops as the doors, and elaborate Gothic stone fireplaces. These have a moulded arch, flanked by slender round piers with foliate capitals, a motif which is repeated along the cornice. The frieze is carved with a flying banner, and the spandrels have mouchettes and quatrefoils with outward pointing cusps, in the centre of which are the initials of the first owner. The south-facing room, which is second from the west, has a square-headed stone fireplace with simple moulding. It is in this room that the secondary stone staircase was relocated from the north side of the corridor. The first-floor corridor has a Gothic-arched opening to the right of the main staircase and a Gothic-arched niche in the north-west corner, lit by a single lancet. There are two rooms on the north side, and three main rooms on the south side, with the eastern-most room having a shallow-arched recess in front of the window. Two rooms contain square-headed, moulded timber fireplaces with segmental-arched openings and cast-iron grates. The attic has three plain bedrooms without fireplaces. The doors to all the bedrooms are four-panelled, as are those to the former service rooms.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES
The red-brick wall along the west boundary has saddle-back coping and is decorated with intermittent moulded bricks consisting of a coquillage and stylised leaves, interspersed with rows of three quatrefoil motifs on the buttresses. The attached outbuilding to the south is not of special interest. The brick entrance piers and east boundary wall are of recent construction and are not of special interest.

Sources

Books and journals
Williamson, E, The Buildings of England: Nottinghamshire, (1979)
Traditional Homes in A Spiritual Awakening, (January 1992)

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