The Old Rectory

The Story of the English Parsonage

Anthony Jennings

• Publisher: Sacristy Press
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781910519530
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Religious Architecture

"Ahumdinging page-turner of a book"
The Spectator

"This book will give great pleasure"
Country Life

Traditional English rectories and vicarages have been neglected by the Church in the post-war years, but have become highly desirable to property buyers, and are now cherished by their new private owners. They combine many coveted qualities: their fine architecture, their air of civilisation, their charm and character, the traditional values and the essential "Englishness" they evoke, their large gardens and often splendidly rural locations.

This book is about these fine houses, their place in English history and the history of the Church, their architecture, their architects, their contribution to our culture, and their sometimes eccentric occupants—both clerical and secular.

This new edition has includes additional material and 68 plates (most of which are in full colour).

Part One: Prologue

“A serious house on serious earth it is”
Philip Larkin

Chapter 1

The Appeal of the Old Rectory

“It is no coincidence,” said Country Life,1 “that the best addresses in any English village are likely to be The Manor House or The Hall, followed by The Old Rectory or The Old Vicarage. Such is the enduring appeal of these gracious relics of a less secular age that ownership of a former rectory or vicarage is still considered one of the ultimate symbols of status in the community.” It quoted an estate agent: “There’s something quintessentially English about an old rectory, which conjures up images of elegance, space and cucumber sandwiches on the lawn.”2 “The vicarage and the rectory are two of the cornerstones of English village life . . . the holy grail for any 21st century property developer is to track down one of these properties and sell it on, after an overhaul.”3 In his survey of historic parsonages in Devon, the Revd Jeremy Hummerstone noted: “The very name ‘Rectory’ adds to the value of these fine houses.”4 “It is what more people want than any other house”, said an estate agent of the Grade II old rectory at Coberley, selling in 2005 for £2.85 million.

In breezier style: “Ever dreamt of owning an old rectory? Perhaps the question is—have you ever not dreamt of living in said old rectory?”5 Or: “Buyers are backed up along the M1 waiting to pull into an old rectory, ignoring its more lowly neighbours . . . a hot spot is the rich slice of middle England between Newbury and Marlborough. If you are thinking of selling your lovely Old Rectory in these parts, don’t bother waiting for the spring flowers.”6 Or: “Your sixteenth-century rectory . . . sounds like an idle fantasy . . . they stumbled upon the Old Rectory on the internet and could not believe that it ‘ticked every box’ on their wish-list, from the practical (it has five bedrooms so guests could stay) to the silly . . . an Aga, a crunchy gravel drive.”7 “Not too large and not too small; not too grand, nor too humble . . . but just right. It has history, style and an ideal position. It attracts buyers like bees to its purple wisteria . . . No wonder estate agents lick their lips when an owner decides to sell.”8 “Take, for example, the gorgeous 17th century Old Rectory at Haccombe. It’s straight out of central casting.”9 “They are the most popular houses by far . . . ask any new buyer . . . what his dream home might be and nine out of ten will say the old rectory.”10 “The wisteria-draped rectory is the ultimate rural idyll . . . Georgian is rectory nirvana; Victorian is popular too.”11 In a more mercenary vein: “Developer X made £1 million in two years after he and his family moved to a rundown former rectory near Reigate . . . Now . . . the early eighteenth-century home . . . could be worth as much as £2.2 million, putting the family well into the millionaire bracket.”12

We are constantly reminded of the huge popularity of The Old Rectory. But what is it that makes these houses so popular? After all, they have associations with religion in general and Christianity in particular, deeply unfashionable these days, not to say responsible for all the world’s ills, if the proudly atheist chattering classes are to be believed. But once a rectory has become a former rectory those associations are often unspokenly but determinedly marginalised. They are now of the past. The term “rectory” nowadays just seems to signify a grand old house in the country.

But don’t they also connote outdatedness? That can spell unfashionability, anathema in an age when we are bombarded with the message that we are nothing unless we are trendsetters, “progressive”, “cutting edge”! Most of us would describe old rectories as charming, tranquil, traditional, rural, dignified, imposing, and the dreaded “rambling”, old-fashioned qualities. Surely England is now modern and multicultural? But old rectories are still status symbols, it seems. They must appeal to something deep-seated in us. Even the trendies of the cultural elite, our architects and design gurus, even the atheists, seem not to begrudge the innocent pleasures of their adherents. In fact, they are by no means averse to owning the odd old rectory themselves. With old rectories, trendiness doesn’t seem to matter. They are so untrendy that they are trendy.

We talked about Englishness. The Church of England is very English. What about Scotland and Wales? The Scottish character, and its Presbyterianism, are less aptly characterised by sweeping drives and grand façades. Wales is the land of the chapel and its heritage lies more in the hill farm than the Georgian pediment, but it has some good parsonages.

We mentioned tranquillity. In an age of noise pollution, that is important. Most parsonages are in the country. Many have large gardens. They also seem to have a spiritual tranquillity in the oak and pine panels, and the boards which once creaked to the tread of rectors, their families and dogs, their ferrets and archdeacons. That was their raison d’être. Religion may be unfashionable in times of apathy, agnosticism, atheism, and media sages like Richard Dawkins with their corrosive views, but a more politically correct term like “spirituality” or “meditation” has tapped into something more fashionable since the psychedelic 1960s. Most of us still have some time for the metaphysical, even if we no longer eagerly stride up the church path. We may be slaves to fashion, dreading above almost all else to be thought practising Christians, ideas like restraint and self-sacrifice anathema, but a dash of spirituality in the cocktail, just a little drop, why, there can be no harm in that. The chimneypiece, the mullions, and the wainscoting can create the right mood as the pre-dinner chatter begins and the gin and tonics are broached as dusk falls on the backdrop of the lawns beyond the leaded lights. Tranquillity torn from spirituality becomes tranquillity at the altar of secularism.

We also talked of more worldly desires. Rectories symbolise not great wealth, but a comfortable affluence, again a thoroughly English aspiration. Most of us have dreamed of living in a grand house, with fine architectural features, however vague our knowledge of architraves and quoins, however liberal our political views, whatever our professed revulsion for snobbery or privilege. We may not aspire to Longleat, but the Old Rectory will fill the bill. As we greet our weekend guests with their gasps of admiration, we can glance up at the south elevation with a throwaway “yes, not a bad little place”. The Old Rectory is a step up the ladder from the Victorian semi of our younger days, on the path to bourgeois respectability. It is where we think we quite rightly should be, as the greying hairs get harder to conceal.

We often resort to that old cliché “rambling” in our attempts to summarise what is desirable about old rectories. We can’t resist it; it avoids the need for a more precise architectural vocabulary. It is by no means always accurate. Many early parsonages are too small to have endless corridors at unexpected angles, and there are some surprisingly compact Georgian ones. But there is more to the word than that. It hints at desirability. It suggests spaciousness combined with character, a house which takes time to reveal its secrets, a house which is the very opposite of a modern box. It can mean a house that is grand while still being vernacular and unselfconscious. More broadly, it creates an image of a rosier, less stressful, more reassuring past. Interestingly, we will see in the next chapter that it can be used in a pejorative sense as well.

Is there no downside to the dream? What about the cost of maintaining these houses? The Church has certainly failed to keep them in good repair. To any Church bureaucrat, the mere mention of an old parsonage conjures up a vision of apparently insuperable problems. Yet this is not a great issue for private buyers. They are going to have to spend money, but they are prepared to do so. They understand that the Church is selling the house too cheaply because it has not maintained it properly.

“It seems that whatever state old rectories and vicarages are in and whatever indignities they have suffered, buyers flock to them like vultures to the carcass . . . Buyers climb over each other to bid for the bleak shells disposed of by the Church . . . Put bay trees by the front door, and the rich move in . . . It’s a sobering thought that when the village grandees come in for an after-service sherry, their wives are probably mentally measuring up the curtains . . . buyers simply refuse to be put off, whatever the condition of the house.”13

Unlike the Church, private buyers understand that routine maintenance is not just prudent, but essential. If there is any threat to the old rectory it is that of “over-restoration”, not lack of maintenance.

It was not always like this. When rectories first began to be sold in substantial numbers, after the First World War, they were unpopular if not unmarketable, and this remained true until long after the Second World War. When they were sold, it was generally for a pittance, but the families who bought them then now have a substantial asset. That unpopularity seems odd now, but in the context, it is understandable. We had survived the two greatest upheavals in our history, which had brought radical change in our economic circumstances and our attitude to the past. We were now poor; old houses reminded us of old times. Bombing had not only damaged our heritage but our attitude to what remained. There was a desire to move on, to look to the future. Austerity had forced us to crave a new simplicity. At first, the architects of the New Elizabethan era were seen as the solution. They were designing houses for the modern world, compact, practical, economical, technologically advanced, and with the very latest materials and labour-saving devices. The public took its cue from the success of the Festival of Britain, and was eager for the new ideas.

By the 1970s, the backlash had begun. The harsh modernist style was becoming less acceptable. The new buildings could be seen to be no better, even inferior in design and construction. We had tumbled to modernism. Ironically, it was modernism that turned our thoughts to tradition again. The disadvantages of fine old buildings were looking more like advantages. It was the birth of the “heritage” culture. The rigid dogma that form must be unadorned, and of concrete, steel, and glass, was seen to produce houses of little character and less charm. Because concepts such as craftsmanship, even beauty, were alien to the new buildings, they alienated the public. Inferior materials and construction gave rise to hefty repair or maintenance bills, the avoidance of which had first been seen as the main advantage of new houses. A rectory of the proper, friendly kind was not such a bad bargain after all. And there were plenty on the market at ridiculous prices.

In one unforeseen way, then, the Church has been lucky in finding such a ready market for its houses. But, like deconsecrated churches, their true purpose has gone. They are lost to the Church. What has the Church gained in return? Is its mission strengthened? Have congregations increased? Has the exercise at least been a financial success?

“There is real social kudos in owning an old vicarage. Now that the dioceses aren’t as heavily underwritten by the Church Commissioners as they were a decade ago, it makes sense for them to cash in on some of their larger assets.”14 But what sort of sense? Practical sense? Financial sense? Pastoral sense? Sense for the parish? Has the “great sell-off” worked?

Notes

1 Penny Churchill, Country Life, 11 January 2001.

2 Edward Waterson, Carter Jonas.

3 Daily Telegraph, Telegraph Property, “Living on a Prayer”, 1 October 2011.

4 J. Hummerstone, Historic Parsonages in Devon, Save Our Parsonages, 1995.

5 Anna Tyzack, Daily Telegraph, “Live The Dream”, 14 March 2009.

6 Anne Spackman, The Times, Bricks and Mortar, 17 September 2004.

7 The Times, Bricks and Mortar, September 2004.

8 The Sunday Telegraph, “Simply Divine”, 10 July 2005.

9 London Evening Standard, Homes & Property, 23 November 2011.

10 Sunday Telegraph, Life, “Praise Be to Rectories”, 29 August 2010.

11 The Times, Bricks and Mortar, 10 May 2013.

12 London Evening Standard, Homes & Property, 2005.

13 Dixie Nichols, Daily Telegraph, 3 December 1994.

14 Richard Jackson, Cluttons, quoted in newspaper article, 2005.

Chapter 2

The Great Twentieth-Century Sell-Off

Strolling around an unfamiliar village, seeing “The Old Rectory”, or “The Old Vicarage”, or perhaps “The Old Deanery” or “The Old Chantry”, we remain largely uninquisitive. We can see that these buildings no longer fulfil their true function. We probably assume there are good reasons for this and the Church must know what it is doing. The Church is probably no...