Building record 4140/9/1 - No.9 High Street (Stoneleigh) & Attached Outbuildings

House. C18 origins, main front 1840.

{1} House. C18 origins, main front 1840. Limestone ashlar façade with ironstone and brick rear wing and outbuildings. Collyweston and Welsh slate roofs. L-shape plan. Main front of 3-window range of sash windows with glazing bars under stone lintels with keyblocks. Central 6-panel door with rectangular fanlight also under stone lintel with keyblock. Ashlar gable parapets and ashlar stacks at ends. C18 rear wing and attached outbuildings, part without roof, said to have been used for paper/parchment manufacture.

{3} House of C18th origin with C19th frontage. 'T' plan house with outbuildings forming a continuous extension to the rear. Beyond the domestic accommodation stands a former stable, used as general store with stair access to first floor workshop at time of visit. The earliest known building on the site now occupied by "Stoneleigh" lay gable-end onto the High Street and extended right up to the footway boundary. The foundations for this part of the building were found when the current occupant dug foundations for the present garden boundary wall and relaid the front garden.

The present front part of the house, which lies parallel to the road, was built in 1830 by Thomas Myers (list description says 1840, but the evidence for this is not known). Myers was a builder by trade, but he also appears in the Whellan Directory of 1849 as a parchment-maker.The 1830 part of the house is of a good quality build. The roof structure contains carefully numbered rafters which support the collyweston slate. The original slate survived unaltered on the roof until the early 1990s and was pegged with oak pegs and was torched with lime to seal it on the underside. The two front reception rooms contain very high quality 1830s marble fireplaces which are original to this phase of the building. They are both of similar design, with a deep mantle shelf supported by fluted pillasters with a circular motif as the capital. They are spare in ornamentation and possibly inspired by John Soane's style. The cellar, which lies under the 1830s phase only, is accessed via a dog-leg steep stone staircase of the hallway which runs front to rear. The cellar ceiling includes a massive timber beam, which has clearly been re-used, this is supporting the drawing room floor.

It is known that the buildings at "Stoneleigh" were in the ownership of Mrs J. Colvil in 1935. The name is etched in the glass of the kitchen window. This lady ran the parchment works at that time. The business was run in conjunction with another works at Barrowden, near Wakerley. At that time the stables attached to the main house where used for the horses which took materials between the two works. The finished parchment was dispatched to London for use for the pages of Hansard.
It is not known when the works ceased to operate, but they were used for other leather related trades subsequently. In the 1960s, when the property was purely domestic, much evidence of the use of the buildings for shoe making was found, including leather scraps, and nails. It is thought that it had been in use as a heel makers.

The former parchment works is on two levels and in four bays.
West elevation ground floor of stone is fronted by a single storey outbuilding of brick under mono pitch tin. This is a later addition, erected mid 20th century as an apple store. The first floor level has five vertical brick piers with remnants of a timber frame infill and, at the north end, a small portion of timber slatting survives. This is in the form of a louvre for ventilation and free passage of air for drying. There are two entrances; the first is via a stable style door to the north end; the second under a mono pitch tile roof at the southern end.
At the north end of the eastern elevation a brick chimney was discernible, in line with the former works. Exact position of chimney and constituents of the eastern wall of the works were difficult to assess because of heavy vegetation growth. At the southern end of the eastern elevation the C19th and C18th accommodation with doorway allowing access to a privy.

{4} The buildings recorded during this survey are either in a poor state of repair, or have been subject to recent refurbishment. The former applies to the parchment works buildings. These structures have no roof, walls which in places do not survive above first floor level, and do not retain any evidence of their former use, such as machinery or other paraphernalia. Many areas of walling were covered in climbing ivy with roots penetrating the joints, with extensive surrounding overgrowth in and outside the structures. The decay of these buildings is clearly an ongoing process, as evidenced by a comparison of the current state of the building with the SMR report prepared after a site visit in June 2000. This report details the survival of five brick piers to the rear of the mono-pitched outbuilding on the southwest elevation, as well as timber framing and timber slatting. However the current survey recorded only three brick piers and there was no longer any evidence for any timber framing or slatting surviving.

{5} Undated photo;

Ellison, M, 2000, 9 High Street, Gretton (Parchment Works) (Slides). SNN112059.

<1> Clews Architects, 1980s, Database for Listing of Historic Buildings of Special Architectural Interest: Northamptonshire, 11/59 (checked) (Digital archive). SNN102353.

<2> 1992, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest ("Greenback"), K06 (unchecked) (Catalogue). SNN46686.

<3> Bond A.; Ellison M., 2000, Stoneleigh, 9 High Street, Gretton, Northamptonshire: SMR Report, (checked) (Unpublished Report). SNN101182.

<4> Clay, C, 2015, Historic building survey report: Stoneleigh, 9 High Street, Gretton, Northamptonshire, 2015 (Report). SNN110620.

<5> Photographs of buildings in Gretton (Photographs). SNN111741.

Record last edited

Jan 7 2025 1:07PM