Presbytery, School Room, Outbuildings, Boundary Walls and Railings, Leyburn, North Yorkshire

Summary

Roman Catholic presbytery, built 1835, together with a school room dated 1836 which occupies the upper floor of a detached stables to the rear.

Description

Presbytery, 1835, stable with school room above, 1836. Both built by the local firm of Chapleo and Sons.

MATERIALS: coursed, squared limestone with sandstone dressings to the front elevation, coursed rubble to the rear; Welsh slate roof. The stable/school is of rubble limestone with a stone slate roof.

PLAN: double fronted, double depth with a central entrance and a rear stair hall. The school is a single room above the former stable block sited to the rear of the presbytery.

EXTERIOR: Presbytery, front (south east): approximately symmetrical of three bays and two storeys. Windows are 8-over-8 hornless sashes set in plain, monolithic stone surrounds. The central entrance has a 6-panel door below a semicircular fanlight with radial glazing bars, all set within a round-arched ashlar surround with imposts and keystone. The elevation is quoined to the right (north east) and abuts the church to the left, slightly set back from the church's quoining, the church being separately listed. The gable end is plain coped and has a two stage ridge stack, a second ridge stack breaking the symmetry by rising between the south western two bays.

Presbytery, rear: this has a two storey extension, with a small foot print and a flat roof, which covers the lower part of the round arched stair window. This extension* is not of special interest. The other windows are multi-paned but replacement joinery with renewed cills and lintels* are not of special interest. The gable end is blind.

Stable and school: this is a two storey, two bay building forming a detached outbuilding to the rear of the presbytery. Opening onto the rear yard there is a basket arched cart opening with an enlarged, but lower garage opening to the right, with a plain doorway to the gable end. Above there is a simple stone cross inscribed "Catholic School 1836". Access to the upper floor is via external steps to the rear (north eastern) side, the upper room being lit by two windows to each side wall, these windows having replacement joinery that is not of special interest*. The northern gable end is blind and retains a ridge stack.

INTERIOR: Presbytery: retains original joinery including window shutters and panelling to doorway reveals. Fireplaces are later replacements and a wall with a fire door, has been inserted across the stair hall to divide it from the entrance passage, these later alterations* not being of special interest. Cornicing and other plasterwork suggests that the north eastern first floor room was originally a reception room. The ground floor south western room forms the sacristy for the church.

School room: this has a low, beamed ceiling and retains a cast iron fireplace flanked by cupboard alcoves to the northern gable. The southern gable has a small niche probably originally for a cross or statue.

SUBSIDIARY ITEMS: to the north of the presbytery there is a low range of stone-built outbuildings. The plot is mostly defined by a stone wall, but the boundary between the front garden and the entrance drive to the church is marked by a set of low, gothic style cast iron railings incorporating a pedestrian gate.

* Pursuant to s.1(5A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 (‘the Act’) it is declared that these aforementioned feature are not of special architectural or historic interest.

The adjacent church is listed separately at Grade II*.

History

The presbytery is thought to have been built at the same time as the adjacent church in 1835. The Bishop's visitation to Leyburn in the late 1840s noted that it was very sparsely furnished. In 1851 the house accommodated not just Fr.Richard Bolton, the parish priest, but his sister and niece, as well as a young man called Richard Ireland Foss, who was the church's school master and organist from at least 1845 until his death in 1855.

To the rear of the presbytery is a former stable with an upper room with a separate entrance. This upper room is identified as being the first school room for Leyburn's Roman Catholic school which was established shortly after the opening of the church. The main benefactor is believed to have been Frederick Riddell of Thornbrough Hall who owned the land and is recorded as being the school's only subscriber in 1847, then paying £4 per annum. The first school master, noted in Pigot's Directory of 1841, was Richard Chapleo, younger brother of the builder who constructed the church. Records suggest that the school was impoverished and generally accommodated up to around 30 children, but closed in the early 1870s following the opening of a National School in Leyburn in 1864. In 1895 a new Roman Catholic school was opened in a new building just to the south of the church, this later school building is not included in the listing.

Reasons for Listing

The Presbytery, school room, outbuildings, boundary walls and railings are listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Date: as a good, well preserved pre-1840 presbytery retaining a range of period features such as cast iron railings, window shutters and plasterwork;
* School room: for the survival of a simple, single roomed Roman Catholic school dated 1836, the year following the opening of the church;
* Group value: with the adjacent Grade II* listed church of St Peter and St Paul.

External Links

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.