Foston Rectory is a historic building in

Foston, North Yorkshire Foston is a small village and civil parish in North Yorkshire, England. The population of the civil parish as of the 2011 census was 263. Details are included in the civil parish of Whitwell-on-the-Hill. It is situated close to the A64 road an ...

, a village in England.

Sydney Smith Sydney Smith (3 June 1771 – 22 February 1845) was an English wit, writer, and Anglican cleric. Besides his energetic parochial work, he was known for his writing and philosophy, founding the ''Edinburgh Review'', lecturing at the Royal Inst ...

was appointed as rector of All Saints' Church, Foston in 1806. He wished to build a new

rectory A clergy house is the residence, or former residence, of one or more priests or ministers of a given religion, serving as both a home and a base for the occupant's ministry. Residences of this type can have a variety of names, such as manse, p ...

, but found architects' quotes to be too expensive. Instead, he designed the building himself and managed the construction work, which was begun in 1813 and completed in 1814. Downstairs were a drawing room, dining room, study and conservatory, with bedrooms upstairs. Smith remained in residence until 1829, and the building was thereafter largely unaltered. The house was

grade II* listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...

in 1954. The rectory is in brick with a hipped

pantile A pantile is a type of fired roof tile, normally made from clay. It is S-shaped in profile and is single lap, meaning that the end of the tile laps only the course immediately below. Flat tiles normally lap two courses. A pantile-covered roo ...

roof. There are two storeys, a main range with three

bays A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a ''gulf'', ''sea'', ''sound'', or ''bight''. A ''cove'' is a small, ci ...

, the end bay canted, and a lower service range of four bays. On the main range is a

wrought iron Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.05%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4.5%), or 0.25 for low carbon "mild" steel. Wrought iron is manufactured by heating and melting high carbon cast iron in an ...

porch, and the windows in both parts are

sashes A sash is a large and usually colorful ribbon or band of material worn around the human body, either draping from one shoulder to the opposing hip and back up, or else encircling the waist. The sash around the waist may be worn in daily attire, ...

References

{{coord, 54.07508, -0.95093, format=dms, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title Grade II* listed buildings in North Yorkshire Houses in North Yorkshire Houses completed in 1814

See also

References