Maybe I've seen one too many episodes of Miss Marple but a house called the Old Vicarage conjures up an image of a slightly ramshackle chilly place with tiny rooms and a creaky staircase – everything in fact that the Old Vicarage on Silchester Road isn't.
The imposing two-storey detached house, on one of Glenageary’s longest established roads, is 488sq m (5,250sq ft), has grand proportions and is on 0.6 of an acre of beautifully planted and kept gardens.
It is an old house and it was a vicarage. It was built in the late 1860s as a home for the vicar of the then recently built Church of St Paul across the road. It was one of the earliest houses on Silchester Road but was quickly followed by others and is now surrounded by equally large – or even larger – period homes all set on significant plots behind electric gates.
0 of 7
The vicar must have had a big family to account for such a spacious house with its grand proportions although the present owner speculates that perhaps the ground floor was used for parish business as its layout seems to indicate that there once was a good-sized hall down here and there is separate access to this level at the side.
Gothic
Even without the hint provided in the name, there is much in the Old Vicarage to suggest it was once in church hands. Beautiful stained-glass features in several rooms at the upper level, including in the box bays, and there’s a Gothic-inspired arch over the front door and side pillars similar to the ones in the church.
The layout of the bay-windowed, two-storey house is unusual for the time, not least because the hall door is up a flight of granite steps to the side.
It opens into a wide hall, complete with open fire, and there are two interconnecting reception rooms to the front with matching white marble fireplaces as well as decorative plasterwork on high ceilings.
The formal dining room is to the rear and it has French doors, with stained-glass insets, which leads out to an original wrought-iron exterior staircase now entwined with wisteria. There is also a study with a marble fireplace and a bathroom.
Also on this level is the main bedroom – a grand suite made up of a large bathroom featuring a free-standing bath and a fireplace (it was converted by the present owners from a bedroom), a dressing area and a bedroom which, like so many of the rooms in the Old Vicarage, has lovely stained-glass windows.
When the owners moved in 20 years ago, their extensive renovation included replacing the staircase – it is now a curved one, with wrought-iron decorative insets, leading down to the lower level. Here there are five double bedrooms as well as a cinema – a fine room which would make a lovely bedroom or home office as it opens directly out to a patio in the garden. There’s a recently updated shower wet room.
The owners extended at the rear adding a vast bright room on to the kitchen. Its Gothic-inspired windows make up one wall and are a striking feature in this space which is used as a family area at one end, and a dining area at the other.
Fish pond
There’s a SieMatic fitted kitchen, well laid out with a granite-topped centre island and stainless steel appliances and splashback. There’s also a utility room, a walk-in pantry and a cloakroom.
The mature back garden, now filled with colour, is one of the stand-out features of the house. There is a large fish pond here as well as an attractive water feature in the front garden along with parking for several cars. Lisney is the agent for the Old Vicarage and the price is €3.5 million.
