Cotswold IT Services Ltd

Gated behind the high walls of the Georgian Rectory, this 1815 Coach House was converted half a century ago into a four-bedroom, three reception home. It is not listed (nor is it curtilage listed); it is within the Bourton-on-the-Water Conservation Area, and in the Cotswolds designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Outside the walls and the solid cedar gates, the village to the east is very popular in good weather, but in terms of noise, there is hardly any. To the west, very few tourists are seen. There is no evening or night life to speak of; all the visitors leave by around 5.30pm. The road out to the Fosse Way is not signposted, and traffic speeds are very low.

The house is thus completely quiet almost all the time, and particularly, from the rear garden all that can generally be heard is the calling of birds, or the sheep across the Windrush valley up towards Farmington and Clapton-on-the-Hill.

It comprises three reception rooms, a large kitchen-breakfast room, a substantial hall and a cloakroom on the ground floor, and a large landing with four bedrooms and two bathrooms on the first floor. There are gardens on both sides of the house and in front of it, with a secluded patio between the two rear lawns. The outbuildings consist of a boiler room, two open-fronted sheds and a third covered open area. All services are connected.

Details

The Old Rectory Coach House is set sideways to the road, looking over the croquet lawn of the original rectory to the church tower and typical Cotswold stone cottages beyond. Its front garden is to the right of the house, the side garden in front of the house, and the rear garden to its left (extending two to three times as far as shown in the photograph above).

The front garden, inside the Grade II listed ashlar front wall and its wooden gates, leads for 19m past the original stabling (now three part-open sheds each around 3m square) and its extensive wisteria, fronted by a vine and pillars described in the local plan as “interesting” to the side of the house with an Emily Gray rose to eaves height over the tiny herb garden.

The side garden runs from the front gate across the length of the house against the shared wall to Glebe House, and is stunning in spring (snowdrops, crocuses, daffodils, tulips, alyssum and aubretia) but needs to be encouraged into a longer season. Both the front and side gardens are set around small lawns.

The rear gardens start with a lawn and white lilac tree, with a paved path around and a side door to Rectory Lane which runs behind the house. The path continues centrally past the patio to a pergola with Montana clematis and an Albertine rambling rose which visually terminates the garden; beyond it is the garden shed and compost area, with a gate through to next door’s pool should neighbourly relations be friendly. The patio is around 6.5m wide by 5m deep with an Ena Harkness and two other climbing roses, and is completely secluded; the garden around it (including the small final rear lawn) contains lavenders, a variety of shrubs, a pear tree and a white magnolia.

The house is entered from a cobbled stand beside the lawn of the side garden, through a wide front door under a semi-circular fan-light into a parquet-floored hall of 3.84m x 3.04m with stone mullioned obscure leaded windows to the lane at the rear of the house. A staircase leads from the rear to the first floor at the front of the house; this staircase is an apprentice piece, the final offering by an apprentice on which he was judged and passed out as a master joiner. It was constructed in 1960, when the ground-floor accommodation was turned over from coach-bays and stalls for the horses to living rooms; previously the coachman and groom’s apartments had been on the first floor, reached by an external iron spiral staircase.

Downstairs, the ceiling height is 2.8m. The rooms to the left comprise the living room, 5.72m x 4.94m, with parquet flooring, a working Minster fireplace and mullioned and transomed stone windows with leaded lights to the front (taken from a property in Elmley Castle in 1960) and a wooden window with leaded lights to the rear. The beams in all downstairs rooms are boxed in. The living room leads on to a study, 3.28m x 4.94m, again with parquet flooring and a Minster fireplace, with mullioned stone and metal windows to the rear garden, and finally through a small lobby and boot room, 1.61m x 1.40m, to the back cloakroom (basin and WC – 2.37m x 1.40m), with obscure windows each way to the side and rear gardens. The lobby has external doors each side providing the access to the rear garden, and it and the cloakroom are quarry-tiled.

To the right on the ground floor is the dining room, with suspended floors from this point as the ground starts to drop away a little. The dining room is 5.72m x 4.94, with a corner taken out for the pantry (2.0m x 1.7m). The pantry which has a plain mullioned obscure leaded window and a meat-safe mesh to the rear, is plumbed for a washing machine, and is also used as utility storage and for cool drinks storage. The dining room has at the front mullioned and transomed windows similar to the living room’s, and a high window at the rear (currently shown on Google street view with the camera in Rectory Lane looking directly through it past a small statue of St Francis).

Beyond the dining room is the kitchen and breakfast room, measuring 5.00m x 4.94m, which has an external door and wooden casement windows filling the two carriage entrances, with a small window to the side facing the entrance gates and a double window to the rear. All these are double glazed. The fitted units start with the original larder cupboard with high and low meat-safe mesh to the exterior, resulting in a temperature suitable for potatoes and onions, then in turn a 600mm space currently used for a vegetable fridge, a 400mm unit, the sink, a 400mm set of drawers, a 500mm cupboard, the corner with a 500mm door, the cooker, an 800mm pair of cupboards and a space for a tall fridge/freezer. High cupboards are fitted to match. A central unit is 1200mm x 1100mm, with four cupboards and the plumbed-in space for a dishwasher, with a hanging batterie de cuisine rack over. There is plenty of room for a table and four chairs under the front windows, and in the chimney space backing on to the dining room (where an Aga would go if the owner was so inclined) is a 1500mm pair of cupboards holding recycling boxes and trays.

Outside to the right of the kitchen is the boiler room followed by the three part-open sheds referred to earlier. The front of the house has security planting of a holly tree with a rose in it, a japonica bush, a Montana clematis and the Emily Gray, all of which are placed to discourage climbing.

Returning to the top of the stairs, there is an area known as the locutory (4.00m x 1.67m) with shelving and room for furniture, leading to the corridor at the back of the house which runs between the two full-width main bedrooms at each end. The ceiling height upstairs is generally 2.6m but 2.8m in the two main bedrooms. Starting from the left-hand end is the second-largest bedroom, 3.62m x 4.88, with metal windows in stone mullioned and transomed casements overlooking the rear garden. An original window to the front is visible outside but bricked up on the inside. Next, opposite large windows to the rear which look out to the gardens of cottages off a small drive, comes the hay-loft, which is a double bedroom, 4.27m x 3.81m, with double doors opening to a railing or Juliet balcony. Lastly on this side is the smaller bathroom with windows to the front, with WC, basin, shower and large heated airing cupboard. Across the other side come the fourth bedroom 3.81m x 2.61m with windows to the front, and then – opposite a small original window to the rear – the main bathroom with windows to the front, WC, bidet, large corner bath, ceiling airer, airing cupboard, large (1200mm x 800mm) power shower, and twin wash basins. Finally comes the largest bedroom, 5.03m x 4.88m, with metal leaded windows in wooden casements to the front and side of the house.

There are four lofts, all with access, the central and most extensive one having a loft ladder, lighting and some loose boarding.

All mains services are connected, including a private sewer shared with Glebe House and the new Rectory, which is the responsibility of Thames Water. The electricity supply is overhead and behind the house, so not visible. There is reasonable mobile telephone coverage but no mobile broadband; normal broadband achieves around 6.0 Mbit/s. Council Tax is Band G. Energy rating is E (39).