Description

GREAT MOULTON CAR LANE
Moulton St Michael
8/6 Old Rectory

15.9.77 II*

Former rectory house. 1831, the outcome of a series of drawings, the last dated
January 1831, by W J Donthorn, architect, for the Rev. J S Wigget, incumbent.
Brick with slated roofs, sharply profiled and squared stucco on the south and
east fronts. 2 storeys with 3 storey tower. Donthorn's only surviving unaltered classical building, and his only executed Italianate design, drawing presumably on the researches of his friend Charles Parker's Villa Rustica (1832-1841) and therefore an extremely early example of the richly detailed Italianate style on the villa scale. 2 facades in picturesque opposition with the tower and stack of the south front acting as pivotal points. Asymmetrical south front of 4 bays and three principal elements: tower, off centre porch and stack. 2 ground floor round headed arched sash windows with glazing bars, moulded heads and flat aprons below rising from the plinth. Porch with round headed moulded arch, deep dentil eaves cornice-with solid parapet balcony above with central open work panel of pierced superimposed arches, based on the Italianate source of superimposed ridge tile screens. First floor platband, 2 sashes with glazing bars, French doors onto balcony. Tower upper storey has 3 arch loggia with moulded base and "X" frame balustrade. Hipped roof with 3 stacks rising through the eaves with characteristic Italianate device of angle brackets supporting a hipped coping. Tower balanced to east by prominent external chimney breast and stack with ground floor blank arched niche with apron base and moulded head, first floor blank semi-circular opening, stack rising through the eaves with 2 detached flues linked above by arched bridge with dentil cornice. East garden front has 2 outer 3-sided canted bays and 3 bay centre, sharing with the south front the plinth, first floor platband and deep bracketted Tuscan eaves cornice. Outer bays have 3 ground floor, plinth level silled sashes with margin light glazing bars, and three first floor margin light glazing bar sashes. Centre has 3 ground floor French windows with fixed semi-circular glazed fanlights, 3 first floor margin-light glazing bar sashes. 3 separate hipped roof sections to each 3 bay section, stack at north with moulded Cornice. Interior has large 2 storey hall with open well staircase with cast-
iron anthemion panel balusters, ceiling with heightened rectangular compartment
abstracted out of centre of ceiling forming a sort of square dome or lantern.
Contemporary painted room at south east with pilaster strip panels and roundels
with classical figures and grotteschi, massive grey marble fireplace with flattened anthemion paterae. See Catalogue of the Royal Institute of British Architects Drawing Collection, vol. A-D (1972), pp. 83-89; R O'Donnel "W J Donthorn, (1799-1859), architecture 'with great hardness and decision in the edges"', Architectural History XXI, 1978, pp. 83 - 92.

Listing NGR: TM1659690724

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17531605

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Yorkshire West Riding: Sheffield and the South (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Bristol (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)
• 
  Central Leinster: Kildare, Laois and Offaly (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Specifications for Building Conservation: Volume 1: External Structure: Practical Examples v. 2
• 
  Herefordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)