The Old Vicarage
History
Our house was the Vicarage from around the time of the restoration until 1849, though curiously it is over a quarter of a mile from the church.
Church records from the 18th century describe each room in the house as well as the attached Glebe House, which was demolished some time after 1909 or thereabouts. The sill of the back door to this house was exposed early in the excavations.
The Old Vicarage from the North. South (Sorry!!) Appears in a book dated 1909.
To clarify, this was taken from what is now our neighbour's house, the courtyard
is on the far side of the house.
At the moment this is the best I have for this picture. The Glebe House is to the right and all trace has now gone except for the footings and the door sills. The front door is just visible to the left of the wall, dead centre in the picture. The two windows visible in the main house have since been enlarged, though otherwise each stone is still there today. The wall still exists, though to the right it is now higher and there are no longer steps down to the two front doors.
The present courtyard at what was once the rear of the house once contained a barn measuring 40 foot by 20 foot. Part of the foundations have been found, one part of the north wall when making a telescope pier mounting and the north west corner lies under a flowerbed. Sure enough the south east corner has appeared exactly where expected and can be seen in some of the photos of the excavations.
Sketch of The Old Vicarage made by the late Mick Downes in 2002.
Mick's father bought The Old Vicarage in March 1921 and he was brought up in the main house, later moving to the Glebe House after his father's death in 1933. The red lines were added by me as he did the drawing and show, for instance, the outbuilding at bottom left. At the bottom right is the first floor of the main house.
The barn is shown with labels added as Mick explained where the ashes, pigs and earth closets were.
In the late 1940s a large room was added on the site of the Glebe House and used as a lounge. It seems there was probably access to the roof so it could be used as a terrace.
Around the mid-1970s a second floor was added over the lounge.
An aerial photo from the mid 1960s shows a garage opposite the house in the position of the present slope down to the garden. It was angled somewhat and no visible trace remains.
The existing garage was presumably built sometime in the 1970s.
This picture came from SkyView whose guy just rolled up one day in 2005. As you may know aerial shots tend to be pricey - this was 25 quid or so and good value I thought. Its a bit of story but buying the picture resulted in a near-explosion, mild facial burns to me and the use of one fire extinguisher!!
I have now spoken with SkyView, they believe this was taken in 1980. They also "did" the area in 1963, 67, 73 and 77 - we'll see what turns up in their archives.
Note:
No conservatory.
No lean-to on the East side of the garage. (I demolished this soon after moving in)
Trees apparently hard in against the far (North) side of the garage.
No plastic roofed canopy by the back door.
And a flower bed or what have you running in line with the North edge of the house. No trace of this remains.
And finally the luxuriant willow tree (bottom just right of centre) which we cut down and dug out when it died from honey fungus in, I guess, 1999.
I don't know when this shot was taken but it is after the mid 1970s and before about 1992. (It is also before our neighbours' roof was redone).
On a further glance this shows an almost total lack of trees to the South side of the property. No sign of the huge fir tree (a discarded Xmas tree I suspect) which now casts so much shade.
The garage block was extended in 1998 to add a lower garage adjoining the workshop and above this a roof void accessible from the upper garage.
Although the house is sizeable and occupies a large plot of land, it only has three bedrooms (and a small boxroom).
At various time in the past the house has had walnut trees, an orchard and even apparently a brewhouse.
*** A Glebe House was a house associated with a Vicarage, the rental from which could be used to boost the Priest's income. Similarly the brewhouse would have produced a "Church Ale", the proceeds from which would go to church funds.