Jane Austen grew up in one in Hampshire, the Brontë sisters spent most of
their short lives in a dour Yorkshire version, and David Cameron passed much
of his childhood rattling around in one in Berkshire. A former rectory or
vicarage, that is.
The Old Rectory. It’s the idyllic country address that excites a fervour
bordering on the religious among a certain class of house-hunter. This
month, Country Life launched a competition to find Britain’s finest
parsonage. There’s even a rectory society, uniting postclerical occupants.
Along with the Aga, the labrador and the Barbour, the right ecclesiastical
residence is the epitome of the English country dream. Of the great and good
listed in Who’s Who, 157 give their addresses as vicarages and 305 as old
rectories. Although the oldest surviving parsonage (the catch-all word for
both) is thought to date from the 12th century, most were built during the
Georgian and Victorian eras.
“People just love to have the address,” says Crispin Holborow, head of the
country-house department at the estate agent Savills, who has sold a good
many rectories over the years. “It is quintessentially English and confers
immediate status on the owner. Buyers are often people who have done well
and aspire to the ideal of country living.” It is this perceived preeminence
that makes a parsonage one of the safest bets for those seeking sanctuary
from tumbling house prices. “Of course, they are not immune, but they are
the most likely to outperform the market,” Holborow says.
What is often the best house in the town or village does not come cheap.
“Prices can start at £1m and go up to £10m,” he adds. “They are the most
desirable period properties. Almost all are Georgian, Victorian or
Edwardian. They are built for families and have good spaces for formal
entertaining, with well-proportioned rooms, a large garden and views of the
church and the surrounding countryside. Many also have outbuildings and
coach houses for staff.”
When the Old Vicarage in the north Cotswold village of Didbrook came on the
market for £1.2m earlier this month, the selling agent, Jackson-Stops &
Staff, was deluged with inquiries and a sale was agreed in a week. The
honey-coloured house has six big bedrooms and a high-ceilinged drawing room
with a bay window and original shutters, where the vicar would entertain his
parishioners. Outside, clumpy topiary stands guard on the edge of the lawn,
framing the view to fields and the 15th-century church tower.
“Like most rectories, it has a grand feel without being too grand,” says David
Froggatt, director ofthe branch of Jackson-Stops & Staff that sold the
property. “Every time we have a rectory or vicarage for sale, we get lots of
interest.”
Henry Holland-Hibbert, head of the country-house department at Strutt &
Parker, says the best former parsonages command a premium of up to 10% over
other property. Generally, in a reflection of population, wealth and
churchgoing habits, there are more of them in the south and southeast than
in Yorkshire and Northumberland.
“If it ain’t the manor, the rectory is the next best thing,” Holland-Hibbert
says. “Almost all of them have a good location, which makes them popular.
Unless the village has been blighted by new housing developments, it will be
pretty much as it was when it was built.” He is selling a Grade II-listed
Georgian rectory with 1.8 acres in Hartest, near Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk,
for £2m (01473 214841, www.struttand
parker.co.uk).
Often in immaculate condition, with a swimming pool and a tennis court, most
parsonages would be unrecognisable to their former ecclesiastical residents.
The wood-panelled study where the vicar would once retire to write his
Sunday sermon is now just as likely to be a wireless paradise of remote
working, linked to Bloomberg and Sky Sports.
Most vicars have long since moved into modern dwellings, as a result of the
Church of England’s decision, in the latter half of the 20th century, to
dispose of rectories and vicarages it considered too large, unmanageable and
expensive to maintain. Anthea Jones, author of A Thousand Years of the
English Parish, estimates that 8,000 were sold between 1948 and 1994. Recent
reports suggest that as few as 5% of working rectories date from before the
second world war.
Almost all period parsonages – handsome Queen Anne mansions, sturdy
sash-windowed Georgian boxes and high-church, high-Victorian turreted
vicarages – are now in the hands of private homeowners. Present incumbents
include Robert Harris, author of Fatherland, Jeffrey Archer, and the writer
and broadcaster Lucinda Lambton, who has said she “feels England is stuffed
in its walls”.
So, why do they hold such an enduring appeal? Holborow believes it has less to
do with market value and more to do with the English imagination. These
elegant homes, imbued with a sense of morality and learning, reflect the
national passion for period dramas. “We seem to love the romance and
simplicity of those days, and want to reinvent them for ourselves and our
own life,” he says.
True-life romance did occur in just such a perfect period setting when, in
1991, Peter Fludd, then a City broker, took his girlfriend, Deborah, to view
the Old Rectory in West Horsley, in the downlands of Surrey. He went down on
one knee in the drawing room and proposed. When she said yes, he put in an
offer for the six-bedroom house.
“It was meant to be,” says Fludd, 64, who paid £645,000 for the rectory. “It
was perfect. I love the house. It was owned by a widow, and was last done up
27 years before we bought it, so we set about restoring it.” The couple put
in Georgian-style fittings and cornices, revealed a fireplace, knocked down
walls to make a large kitchen and installed an Aga. Five years ago, they
added a “huge” conservatory.
Now Fludd, his wife, Deborah, 49, and his six Highland cattle are moving to a
smaller property nearby, and the rectory is on the market for £4.5m with
Savills (020 7499 8644, www.savills.co.uk).
Will he miss it? “Yes, I love the feel of the place. The rooms are all large
with high ceilings and they have perfect light,” Fludd says. “We installed a
pond and have swans, geese and mallards, and mandarin ducks come and go.”
The couple have also held the village fête on their land. Any new owners of
former parsonages should be prepared to take on such unexpected beneficent
roles. As one agent tells me, you cancel the fête at your peril.
For most owners, installing a tent in the field one day a year is the only
lingering duty, but it’s not all roses around the door. Pealing church bells
and nesting crows in trees lining the graveyard are among other potential
hazards.
More alarming, you could find yourself obliged to contribute to repairs to the
local church. Under the Chancel Repairs Act 1932, owners of properties on
former glebe land in England and Wales – which includes many parsonages –
can be faced with a bill that could run to six figures. Anyone buying needs
to do their research.
Although the supply of period parsonages is by definition limited, James
Greenwood, director of Stacks, a buying agent, believes more could come up
for sale in the next few years. “It’s about demographics,” he says. “The
majority of owners are now in their sixties and seventies, former City men,
army officers and civil servants. Now their children are grown up, they may
be thinking of downsizing. And, as their kids may not be able to buy their
siblings out, so they will come up for sale. There may even be some coming
to the market for the first time, as church numbers dwindle and parishes are
amalgamated.”
Greenwood believes competition for rectories that do come on the market may
not be as fierce as before, as many affluent buyers are more interested in
farmhouses. “Your aspirational rural dweller wants more land, a pony paddock
and some fields,” he says. “That said, most people still hanker after a
rectory. They make perfect family homes and almost all come with a view of
the church and the graveyard. It is the classic English view, it retains its
cachet – and the name looks good on one’s headed paper.”
www.rectorysociety.org.uk
Order of service
Palace
An episcopal residence – buy a wing or a converted chapel from £500,000.
Rectory
Top of the parish pile – historically, a rector ran the parish and collected
tithes, so the houses tend to be grander and come with more land. Expect to
pay between £800,000 and £10m.
Vicarage
The house of the vicar, originally the vice-rector or rector’s assistant –
properties can range from cosy cottages to imposing Victorian mansions.
Prices range from £450,000 to £1.5m.
Manse
The home of a Methodist or Presbyterian minister – most often found in
Scotland. Prices start at £400,000.
Curate’s egg
A tiny glebe cottage starts at £350,000; a townhouse in a cathedral close
will sell for upwards of £1m.
