Description

1514/0/10014
22-SEP-09

GEDNEY
CHURCH STREET
Gedney Dawsmere
The Old Vicarage

GV
II

Former Vicarage to Christ Church, and now a residential home, built in 1871 by Ewan Christian for the Rev. George Foxton.
MATERIALS: Polychromatic brick laid in English bond with stone dressings under slate gabled roofs.

PLAN: It is an irregular building with the main fronts to the south and west and a kitchen wing extending north-east from that side, and there is a contemporary detached stable block to the north. This was converted to residential use in 2007 and an attachment built to link it with the north elevation, so creating an enclosed courtyard. The house has a central staircase hall, from which the principal rooms open, one in each corner, and a range of first and second-floor bedrooms including a master suite.

EXTERIOR: The house is in a Tudor-Gothic Revival style. The two-storey south elevation has a central element which curves at the east end, where there is a three-light stone cross casement to the ground floor, with metal framed windows. The main entrance is to the left, with a pointed arched head and voussoirs of blue and red brick within a billeted hoodmould. The plank door has elaborate bifurcated wrought-iron hinges and curved braces on the inside, and the floors are separated by a saw-toothed stringcourse which circumnavigates the entire house. The upper floor has a single pane unhorned sash over the door under the pitched roof which makes a quadrant turn to the east, where there is a two-light metal casement window. The plinth course has a single blue-brick horizontal band and there are further such bands at the sills and lintels of the windows plus an extra band to the ground floor, and these decorative features also recur round the house. This central element is flanked on both sides by taller gabled blocks running north-south, of different forms and stepped forward (left) and back (right). The left (west) wing, separated from the central element by one flat buttress with two set-offs at ground floor level, is lit through a two-light stone mullioned window to each of the two floors. The windows have prominent lintels and external louvered shutters, and the upper window is set below a recessed arched tympanum defined by a raised billeted hoodmould. The tympanum is filled with herringbone blue and red brick and has a double band of blue bricks at the base, corbelled brick kneelers, minor tumbling in the gabled head, two double bands of blue brick and a saw-toothed gable edge. The recessed right (east) wing has a ground-floor two-light stone mullioned window with unhorned sashes, and above it is a single unhorned sash under a triangular relieving arch of alternating blue and red bricks and both windows have external shutters. The corbelled brick kneelers and the saw-toothed gable edge is repeated from the west wing, but the gabled roof is finished to the south with a half-hip. Between these wings and set back is a gabled roof running east-west with two rectangular stacks with astragal courses and saw-toothed cornices. The east side of the east wing continues the banding and the saw-toothed stringcourse and has one 4-light unhorned sash to each floor, but the bulk of it is hidden by a single-storeyed Flemish-bond brick extension of the late C20 which wraps around to the north under a gabled and hipped roof. This extension is not of special interest.

The west elevation repeats the devices of the south front, but again differs from it. The recessed south half has a late C20 uPVC conservatory of no special interest, and a two-light first-floor window with unhorned sashes. The lintel of this is elaborated into a projecting dormer carried on corbelled brick brackets and with two arched recesses with stone quatrefoils with central bosses. The dentilled gable edge terminates at a half hip. The north half of the elevation has a ground-floor canted bay window with three-light and one-light stone cross casements, containing unhorned sashes. Above is a standard two-light mullioned window, also with unhorned sashes, below is another polychromatic billet-edged tympanum, this time with chequered nogging of red brick alone. The ground floor of the north return is obscured by a 2007-8 extension, but has to the upper floor a very tall through-eaves dormer with a blind tympanum over the window filled with herringbone blue and red brick.

The north elevation is much plainer, with only the blue-brick banding for decoration, and three 4-light sashes to each floor (the lower east window replaced with uPVC), a dentilled eaves cornice and two raking dormers with their sills interrupting the cornice. Both dormer windows have been refenestrated in the late C20 with top-hung uPVC casements. The ground-floor east end is obscured by part of the extension already noted to the east front: a uPVC door opens into the kitchen and service wing. The east return of this wing is blank up to the attic storey, which has a central external stack corbelled out from the wall at this level, flanked by a 4-light unhorned sash either side. The west gable head is similar.

The stable block which was formerly detached to the north is of English-bond red brick with one blue-brick band at a low level and a dentilled eaves cornice beneath the gabled roof. The middle one of the three two-light late C20 timber casements is raised up into the tall central gable. The stable doorway to the south side has been blocked in 2007-8 and fitted with a window and a new doorway has been punched through to its west, while in the roof are three Velux roof-lights. The stables are connected to the main house by a single-storey L-shaped extension of 2007-8 which extends out to the west under a hipped slate roof, and is not of special interest.

INTERIOR: The south doorway opens into the two-storey staircase hall, which has a closed gallery at first-floor level on the west side. The open-well staircase is of stained oak and has a panelled apron, a closed pierced string and chamfered square balusters with cross bracing between them. Chamfered square newels of heavier section define each half-landing and have octagonal domed finials with expanded floral lobes and similar drop pendants. The north wall of the hall has been broken through under a triangular arch to link with the 2007-8 extensions to the rear. The south-west ground-floor room has uPVC double doors into the conservatory and a plain white variegated marble chimneypiece with gilded upper bosses. There is tall moulded skirting. The south-east room has similar skirting and a pine chimneypiece with fluted jambs carrying scrolled consoles under a frieze decorated with a Greek urn. The ceiling has an original plaster rose with abstract acanthus leaves within an oval and bobbin border. The north-west room has exactly the same chimneypiece as the south-west room, but in variegated black marble, tall roll-moulded skirting and a moulded door architrave. The north-east room was the site of the original kitchen, and is so today, but is entirely fitted out with modern stainless-steel equipment, and the laundry room and boiler house to its east converted to a bedroom. A secondary staircase rises in the rear lobby in a single flight with stick balusters, a closed string, square newels and a plain moulded handrail. The rear lobby returns to the south to a plank door with four rails and curved braces, which now opens into the single-storey extension.

The second half-landing of the staircase opens to the south into a quadrant passageway leading to a large bedroom now sub-divided, but which was designed as the principal room of a pair of bedrooms in the west side of the house arranged as a suite and linked via the closed gallery off the staircase. Details are spare, and the same plainness applies to all of the bedrooms in the first and second floors. The roof structures are of heavy principal and common rafters with raking queen struts.

HISTORY: Until 1850 there was only one centre of population in Gedney Marsh, which was called Drove End. In 1855 the prominent politician Edward Cardwell (later Viscount Cardwell) and his brother Charles bought some 3,000 acres of land and set about building a new village at Dawsmere, some 1 1/4 miles from Drove End. The cottages were built in pairs, and there was a smithy, a joiners shop, a school, a shop and a parsonage. There was also a site for a church, along with half the money to build it. The ecclesiastical district of Drove End was created in 1855, but it took another 15 years to build a church. The foundation stone for Christ Church, Dawsmere was laid in 1869, and the church was consecrated on 7 April 1870. The Vicarage was built immediately to its west in 1871. Both were designed by Ewan Christian. The incumbent was the Rev. George Frederick Foxton (vicar 1871-96). The Vicarage was sold in 1984 and converted to a residential nursing home. It underwent extensions and alterations in 2007-8.

Ewan Christian (1814-1895) was a prolific architect with 2,040 works to his name, including 90 new churches and many church restorations. He was architect to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners from 1851 until his death. His most important secular commission was the National Portrait Gallery in London (1890-95, Grade I). In 1884-6 he was President of the Royal Institute of British Architects. He was considered by his contemporaries 'a safe man', 'in no sense a heaven-born genius, or even possessed of brilliant parts, but a man of inflexible honesty, great industry and great business capabilities'.

SOURCES:
Nikolaus Pevsner and John Harris, Buildings of England. Lincolnshire, 2nd edn revised by Nicholas Antram (Yale, 2002), 307.
Martin Cherry, 'Christian, Ewan (1814-1895)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004).
J. A. Gotch (ed.), The Growth and Work of the Royal Institute of British Architects 1834-1934 (RIBA, 1934).

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION DECISION:
The Old Vicarage, Church Street, Gedney Dawsmere, Lincolnshire is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* It is a good example of the Tudor-Gothic style which formed one of the main strands of domestic architecture in the High Victorian period
* It is designed by Ewan Christian, a significant C19 architect with over 200 listed buildings to his name
* Its construction displays a high order of craftsmanship, especially in the principal staircase
* Despite early C21 extensions, the plan-form is intact and informs our knowledge of domestic arrangements of the period, particularly in the provision of a husband-and-wife suite of bedrooms on the first floor
* It is comparable to the other listed vicarages by Christian
* It is part of a group with the adjacent church of Christ Church, which is listed Grade II.

Reasons for Listing

The Old Vicarage, Gedney Dawsmere, is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* It is a good example of the Tudor-Gothic style which formed one of the main strands of domestic architecture in the High Victorian period
* It is designed by Ewan Christian, a significant C19 architect with over 200 listed buildings to his name
* Its construction displays a high order of craftsmanship, especially in the principal staircase
* Despite early C21 extensions, the plan-form is intact and informs our knowledge of domestic arrangements of the period, particularly in the provision of a husband-and-wife suite of bedrooms on the first floor
* It is comparable to the other listed vicarages by Christian
* It is part of a group with the adjacent church of Christ Church, which is already listed at Grade II.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26672609

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

• 
  Surrey (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair by Hunt. Roger ( 2008 ) Hardcover
• 
  This Old House: Restoring, Rehabilitating, and Renovating an Older House
• 
  Listed Buildings: The Law and Practice of Historic Buildings, Ancient Monuments and Conservation Areas
• 
  England's Post-War Listed Buildings
• 
  Department for Communities Listed Historic Buildings of Northern Ireland: Information Guide for the 2nd Survey of Historic Buildings