Building record 7198/0/22 - No.1 Market Place (The Rectory)

Early C19 house of ironstone with hipped Welsh slated roof.

{1} [Former list description] Early C19 house of ironstone with hipped Welsh slated roof. 2 storeys, 4 windows and 1 dummy window on right. Sashes with glazing bars under red brick flat arches. 1st floor casement on left. Doorway right of centre has half glazed door and oblong fanlight in architrave surround under stone porch with 3/4 fluted Roman Doric columns and entablature with triglyphs.

{4} Internal and external photographic survey prior to conversion.

{7} 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

<1> Clews Architects, 1980s, Database for Listing of Historic Buildings of Special Architectural Interest: Northamptonshire, 1/79 (checked) (Digital archive). SNN102353.

<2> 1976, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest ("Greenback"), H15 (unchecked) (Catalogue). SNN100754.

<3> List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest, p.7 (unchecked) (Catalogue). SNN46018.

<4> Ellison, M., 2002, SMR Report form, (unchecked) (SMR Report Form). SNN107076.

<5> Ellison, M., 2002, The Rectory, Church Walk, (unchecked) (Photographs). SNN107077.

<6> Ellison, M., 2002, The Rectory, Church Walk, (unchecked) (Slides). SNN107078.

<7> Historic England (formerly English Heritage), Ongoing, National Heritage List for England, Accessed 04/10/2023 (Website). SNN107872.

Record last edited

Oct 4 2023 12:31PM