Letter from our Chairman

The Society is now well into the second full year of its existence, and thriving. In January, our second annual general meeting took place in St George’s, Hanover Square, London, which this year greatly benefited from a proper sound system. We were given a learned and evocative talk on Parsonage Gardens by Lady Mary Keen. An edited version appears on p.3. It emphasised how great an effect parsonages have had on our cultural (in this case, horticultural) life. Mary Keen also exposed, in passing, how your chairman had been wrong in something he had written criticising a scene in Emma in which Jane Austen notes apple blossom in mid-June! The meeting was well-attended, and although one or two people have asked that it be held out of London in future, the general feeling seems to be that the capital is the easiest place for an annual gather-ing. All the more reason, though, to make sure that our programme of visits develops. It is by seeing rectories and vicarages that one learns the most. Thanks to the tireless efforts of our trustee, Amanda Ponsonby, two visits for this summer are in hand, the first to Dorset in May, the second to Derbyshire in September. Levels of interest are high, so early booking is advised. Details appear on page 2 and an application form is enclosed. It is very encouraging that our work is attracting media, academic and commercial interest. We welcome our generous first sponsors, Castleacre, who have created a discounted insurance scheme for our members; (their brochure is included herein) and we are delighted to be able to assist Country Life - see p.8 - in their search for the perfect parsonage (though I would argue that imperfection is part of the charm of these buildings). The illusion persists among some people interested in our work that the Society is a sort of trade union for the owners of old rectories and vicarages. This is emphatically not so. Obviously the core of our support is likely to come from people lucky enough to live in these buildings, but membership is open to all, and our purpose is to increase knowledge, appreciation, expertise, not commercial or campaigning. Encourage all people of goodwill to join!

Charles Moore

Issue 3 April 2008

The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places Yea, I have a goodly heritage Psalm 16.6

ECCLESIASTICAL PATRON The Rt. Rev. Richard Chartres, Bishop of London

TRUSTEES

• Charles Moore

(Chairman)

• J. Scott Burns

• Lord Fellowes

• James Miller

• Amanda Ponsonby

OFFICERS

Hon Secretary

Charles Crosthwaite Membership Christine Bland

Newsletter Editor Christine Bland

Website Valerie Humphrey www.rectorysociety.org.uk

1 patron: HER GRACE THE

DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE

ISSUE 3

Patron: Her Grace the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire

The Rectory Society

There will be two visits this year to members’

homes in the country. The first to the Wilt-

shire/Dorset border will take place on Thursday

22nd May. During this day out we will visit

Donhead House (home of Robert and Clare

Macdonald), The Old Rectory in Sutton

Waldron (home of Duncan and Christl Pearson)

and The Old Rectory at Langton Long (home of

Egerton and Deirdre Skipwith).

The programme will include a picnic lunch and

tea, and a talk by Dr. Tim Connor on buildings

for the 19th century clergy. If you wish to join

us please complete the enclosed application

form. Tickets are limited so we urge you to

reply promptly.

The second visit will take place in September.

We will be visiting the home of our Patron, the

Dowager Duchess of Devonshire in Derbyshire.

The date and full programme for this visit are

still to be worked on and the application form

for tickets will go out in our July newsletter.

Our final event for the year will be a lunch or

dinner with a speaker in the Sloane Club in

London. Again details for this event have yet

to be finalised but will be available for our July

newsletter.

We could not plan these visits without the

generous offers from members to open up their

homes and we are immensely grateful to them.

Rectory Society Visits 2008

2 PATRON: HER GRACE THE DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE I SSUE 3

The Old Rectory, Sutton Waldron

With permission of the artist, Nicholas Hely Hutchinson

Donhead House, Donhead St. Andrew

The Old Rectory, Langton Long, Blandford Forum

Modern Life in the Old Vicarage A Rectory Society member, Jill Samuda, has written an entertaining book based on her experiences when

moving with her husband and four children to an Old Vicarage. She soon found she was expected to host

the village fete, help with the Family Service, and generally become very quickly a part of the community.

She writes under the name Jill Fraser, and her book More Tea, Less Vicar is published by Brewin Books at

£8.95. The ISBN is 1-85858-294-6.

Parsonage Gardens - (A shortened version of the Keynote Address given at the Rectory Society

A.G.M. on 29th January 2008 by the renowned gardener, designer and writer, Mary Keen) ___________________________________________________________________________

The 19th century cleric Rev Sidney Smith claimed that ‘flowers, green turf and birds were not worth an hour of

natural conversation’ and might not have been as shocked as we are by the following advice from the Synod to

modern parsons ‘The permanent planting of low maintenance ground cover is encouraged, as Clergy and their

families may be reluctant to commit a great deal of effort to maintaining their gardens when faced with many

other demands on their time and energy.’ Sidney Smith and the Synod are in the minority tonight.

Time, energy and a commitment to horticulture was a feature of parsonage life for generations, especially in the

18th and 19th centuries. Before the Reformation, (no wives allowed) parsonage houses were modest affairs. The

Dissolution of the monasteries around the middle of the 16th century meant rich pickings for the aristocracy and

encouraged the landed classes to become rectors.

The creation of rich livings was one thing that influenced the way parsons gardened. From the time of the Refor-

mation, rising standards of education amongst the clergy, rising incomes from the agricultural interests of a

rectory, “ownership” of the living and family life all encouraged garden making. But parsons varied. Some

were good, some bad, some rich some poor and the poorest were unlikely to use land for growing anything that

could not be eaten. The legacy of the monasteries left the man in Holy Orders with a tradition of growing food,

wine, meat and medicines. Every benefice had from 2- 200 acres of land and self sufficiency remained vital for

all for centuries.

I want to identify some clerical gardening types. We can call them the Gent, the peasant, the teacher and the

collector. The first parson we can connect with gardening was a teacher. William Lawson was Vicar of Ormesby

in Yorkshire and wrote one of the earliest garden books ‘The new Orchard and Garden’ in 1618. His chapter on

tree management sounds as though it was also aimed at improving the welfare of his parishioners: 'Physic holds it

possible, that a clean body kept by these three Doctors, Doctor Diet, Doctor Quiet, and Doctor Merryman, may

live neer a hundred years. If men can live to a hundred, is it any wonder that well-tended trees can live so much

longer?’

In the nervous years before the Civil War, the status of the clergyman was not always high, but the nobly born

George Herbert- another teacher as well as a gent and of course a poet) took Holy Orders in 1626 and retired from

the world, until his early death at the age of 40, to his parish at Bemerton, near Salisbury. In his work ‘A Priest

to the Temple, or The Country Parson a Spiritual Guide for Parsons’. there are directions on how to grow plants

for the people of a parish. The parson should, Herbert thought, ‘condescend even to the knowledge of tillage and

pastorage and make great use of them in teaching, because people by what they understand are led to what they

understand not.’ Gardening he wrote should be taught to parishioners, because gardens were dispensaries, as

well as places of healing and delight. The parish priest at this time was the person responsible for growing the

herbs which were used for healing and for dispensing those herbs.

Some parsons ( gents) were less inclined to preaching about tillage and pastorage and were bored stiff by country

life. Robert Herrick, vicar, poet, rake and sophisticated Royalist felt banished at his prosperous living on the

edge of Dartmoor around 1630. He longed for London, and while in the city, as he often managed to be, he

swore never to return to Devon ‘until rocks turn to rivers, rivers turn to men’. Outside his house were a barn, a

stable, two gardens and an orchard with poultry and a lamb. Herrick’s poetry is full of daffodils , cowslips,

daisies, primroses which might have all been seen in the wild, but it seems safe to assume that when he mentions

lilies, roses, Marygolds, Pansies or ‘gallant tulips’ (his words) introduced to England around the end of the 16th

century, all these would have been garden plants and so would fruit. Especially the cherries with which he

compared the lips of Anthea, Julia, Corinna, Perilla and the rest. Although, we are told that he did foreswear

poetry, and presumably mistresses, when he was ordained.

Around the middle of the 17th century, Thomas Traherne chose the peasant path and was praised for ‘being con-

tinually resident among us in Herefordshire’. ‘When I came into the country and being seated among trees, had all

my time in my own hands, I resolved to spend it to satiate that burning thirst which nature had enkindled in me

from my youth,’ he wrote..

PAGE 3 3 PATRON: HER GRACE THE DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE I SSUE 3

.

4 PATRON: HER GRACE THE DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE I SSUE 3

The last category to emerge before the end of the 17th century, is the plant collecting parson. In the 1680s, Samuel

Gilbert, son-in-law of the great gardener, John Rea, as well as Shropshire clergyman wrote, ‘A Florists Vade Me-

cum.’ He was a Florist- which means a grower of rarities rather than the modern meaning of an arranger of flowers-

as well as a vicar. In his day, double striped auriculas were worth as much as £20, which would then have been an

enormous sum of money. Gilbert also grew 20 kinds of anemone, and he was proud to claim that among the plants

he grew were ‘many of the rest not yet seen in England.’

By 1704 some parsons were very poor. but 'Queen Anne's Bounty' founded in 1704, did restore an increase in

the incomes of the poorer clergy, from a fund raised from tithes which Henry VIII had taken. Absent parsons

were required to mend their houses and be ‘continually resident’ in their livings and now we get to the high point of

parsonage gardens. Many clerics from the early seventeen hundreds became leading provincial naturalists,

scientists and antiquarians and the best of all these for our purposes was the Reverend Gilbert White. From this

Gentleman parson we can discover a lot about the rectory garden in 1740s.

Gilbert White was a great grower of produce. Walnuts , plums, melons, vines, nectarines, cherries, white currants

and gooseberries are all mentioned in his Garden Kalendar. Pigeons eat his broccoli, he grows spinach for winter,

celery under a hand glass, asparagus and beans,- he was one of the first to grow broad beans. In the kitchen garden,

fruit was trained on walls in an arrangement that was standard throughout the18th and 19th centuries. His problems

are the same as those of modern gardeners. Green finches peck the Polyanthus (although we only get sparrows at

home). Mice eat the crocus, squirrels bark the trees and it rains too much. Like us, the plants that were ordered

often fail to arrive. His neighbour sends for a black grape and gets a white one.

For our 18th century teacher we can look at the Rev William Gilpin, whose living was in the New Forest. He

preached the grandeur of remote scenery in Wales and the Lake District and popularised looking at scenery with

the critical eye of a painter. Jane Austen mentions Gilpin, but mainly in connection with grander gardens than the

one around the rectory where she grew up at Steventon in Hampshire which had a neat railing and stately trees- like

the Collins’ living at Rosings. Later, when the family moved to Chawton, Mrs Austen grew vegetables, digging

potatoes in a smock and Jane describes ‘nice walks round the orchard’, where Moor Park apricots grew among ap-

ples and pears.

In her defence, I might take the opportunity to question our chairman’s recent criticism of Jane Austen’s inaccu-

racy over apple blossom in The Spectator. He quotes her mentioning that it was out almost at midsummer, in

Emma. But there was, and is, an apple called Court Pendu Plat cultivated since 1613 and known as the wise apple,

because it flowers so late and escapes the frost. It does flower in June, around the 10th in Kent, but Hampshire

might be colder and summers do vary, so can we scrub the apple blossom howler?

In contrast, Mrs. Gaskell writes about the Brontes' garden at Haworth Parsonage. 'Underneath the windows is a

narrow flower border, only the most hardy plants could be made to grow there. Within the stone wall, which keeps

out the surrounding churchyard, are bushes of elder and lilac; the rest of the ground is occupied by a square grass

plot and a gravel walk'. It sounds very dismal. Mr. Brontë once declared 'I will never flag the garden walks . . . it

would cost £5, look worse, be more slippery in frost, require washing, and produce weeds between the joinings'.

At a time when tidiness was prized, a few Rectories might have had smart new flower beds like paper cutouts laid

over the turf and filled with flowers in primary colours. But while this new fangled gardening was going on,

Dickens was writing of Mr Boythorn’s pretty former parsonage house, ‘with a lawn at the front, a bright flower

garden at the side, and a well stocked orchard and kitchen garden in the rear, enclosed with a venerable wall that

had of itself a ripened ruddy look’.

We might as well finish with the rest of that depressing advice to modern parsons that I gave you at the start.

‘Ground cover is the term given to plants that quickly and effectively cover the ground and thereby reduce the need

to weed. Roses – seek advice’. In 1880 who better to turn to than Dean Hole, or any of the other knowledgeable

men over three centuries who found time to garden, as well as to carry out their parish duties and often used

gardens to underline and illustrate their preaching. In old age, even the worldly Sidney Smith, seeing a crocus on

the frosty lawn in January, was heard to murmur ‘See! The Resurrection of the world.’

The Old Rectory, Dunkeld, Perthshire

The heritage trail plaque on the railings of The Old Rectory bears the legend—”The Rectory

House”. This is the oldest house in Dunkeld. Of medieval origin, it was remodelled in its present

form in the early 18th century. Being immediately beside Dunkeld Cathedral gates, visitors as-

sume that this is the residence of the Rector of the Cathedral, but this is not so.

When the Royal School of Dunkeld was founded in 1567, after the sacking of the Cathedral in

which the school had previously been held, it was housed in a building attached to the east gable

of the then derelict church. But certainly by 1823, and probably long before then, the school stood

on a site between The Old Rectory and the River Tay below. It was in 1834 or 1835 that David

Henning became the first of four consecutive headmasters, or rectors, of the Royal School to live in

what then became known as the Rector’s House. Andrew Hardie was Rector from 1881 to 1890,

when the school moved to Culloden House at The Cross, where there was living accommodation for

the schoolmaster. No longer the Rector’s House, its past history was eventually recognised as Old

Rectory House, Old Rectory Cottage, and now The Old Rectory.

So, having explained how the house got its present name, we have to hurry back a few centuries to

the beginning of the story when the Cathedral really was a Cathedral and the house was the

Manse of Craigie. The medieval Cathedral, under the Bishop, was governed by a Chapter, with a

number of canons or prebendaries, not necessarily all clergymen, who enjoyed a residence known

as a Manse in the Cathedral precinct , bearing the name of the parish or lands from which their

income was derived and for which they might also have pastoral responsibilities—Craigie among

them. At the time of the Reformation the Privy Council of Scotland ordered the Cathedral to be

purged of “monuments of idolatry”, but, instead, it was comprehensively ravaged, the painstaking

work of three centuries destroyed in as many days, with the ecclesiastical community eventually

broken up and dispersed.

A new house was erected on the same site, reusing much of the material of the old, in 1600 or

1601. In 1689 came the Battle of Dunkeld, from which only the Cathedral and The Old Rectory

now survive. The Dukes of Atholl owned the house for nearly 300 years—from 1686 to 1944.

When the last of his tenants died The Old Rectory was sold—for £350—to private owners; we

bought the house in July 2001 (but not for £350!!). It is the only property on the north side of

Cathedral Street which is not owned by the National Trust for Scotland, and has Category B listed

status, though in an A listed setting.

Sir Robert Smith

PAGE 5 5 PATRON: HER GRACE THE DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE I SSUE 3

The English Parsonage in the Early Nineteenth Century

The Parsonage is one of the best loved of all the traditional English building types. From mediaeval times up

to the present day, the home of the rector or vicar of a parish has been a centre of village life.

A new book by Timothy Brittain-Catlin (a Rectory Society Member) draws on original and penetrating

scholarship to present in detail the history of the parsonage in the early years of the nineteenth century, the

period when these houses were transformed from the typically elegant but restrained Georgian type to the

lively, original residences of the Gothic Revival.

Presenting these houses, both through a wealth of previously unpublished historical drawings and with a

selection of new photographs by leading architectural photographer Martin Charles, The English Parsonage

in the Early Nineteenth Century tells the lively story of a critical chapter in English social history,and a

decisive moment of transformation in English architecture.

On publication, the book will be available to Rectory Society members at a special price for a limited period

and further details will be included in our next Newsletter.

6 PATRON: HER GRACE THE DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE I SSUE 3

Save Our Parsonages

Ten years ago the founders of Save Our Parsonages (SOP) first had the idea of writing a book about the

history, architecture and cultural importance of rectories and vicarages. Nothing had effectively been

written on the subject since 1964. Peter Burman, until recently Director of Conservation and Property

Services in the National Trust for Scotland, and Tony Hodgson, who runs the Christian community at the

historic Ferrar House, Little Gidding (founded by Nicholas Ferrar in the 17th century) were among those

who started the project. The book covers both working houses and the majority now in private ownership,

and is entitled The Old Rectory.

When Anthony Jennings took over as director of SOP in 2004, he took up the reins, with the full backing

of the original team, and with the support of the patrons of SOP. Since then more than three years of

research and a lot of writing has taken place. However, it is now necessary to fill in the gaps and this is

where members of The Rectory Society can help. A gazeteer of parsonages is being drawn up for specific

mention in the book. It is important to ensure that as many fine houses as possible are covered and that

owners have as much “ownership” of the project as they feel they should have.

Contributions will be acknowledged; photographs would be very much welcomed. Please contact An-

thony Jennings at Save Our Parsonages, Flat Z, 12-18 Bloomsbury Street, London WC1B 3QA,

ajsjennings@hotmail.com.

Thank you from St. George’s The Rev’d Roderick Leece, Rector of St George’s, Hanover Square, would like to express his sincere thanks

to all the members of The Rectory Society who kindly raised £345 for the St. George’s Hanover Square

Foundation during a collection taken at the AGM in January. He looks forward to welcoming you back to St.

George’s in 2009.

Old Came Rectory, once described as the prettiest rectory in

England, was built to serve the benefices of Winterborne

Came and Whitcombe just outside Dorchester in Dorset.

The present house, which replaced an earlier building near

the parish church, was built for the Rev’d Dr William Eng-

land, who held the benefice between 1804 and 1836. In

1825, George Dawson Damer, heir to the Came Estate,

married Mary ‘Minnie’ Seymour, the ward of Mrs

Fitzherbert, wife of the Prince Regent, later King George IV.

Mrs Fitzherbert settled a dowry of £20,000 on her ward,

and a further £20,000 was provided by the King. This

enormous influx of cash into the Estate enabled the Dawson

Damers to begin a lengthy programme of improvements

which most likely included building the new Rectory.

Although the architect of this building has not yet been

identified, it has been suggested that it may be the work of

John Nash.

The new Rectory incorporated elements of an earlier

building. The main façade facing west comprises three bays,

and has a hipped thatched roof and a thatched verandah

supported by slender rustic poles. The Rectory windows are

a particularly striking feature of the design with their

geometrical glazing bars which, as the architectural historian

Dr Tim Brittain-Catlin has pointed out, follow a ‘Chinese’

fretwork pattern. Inside, the house has a relatively simple

plan, with two reception rooms on the entrance façade and a

stone-flagged hall leading to a study for the Rector and the

original kitchen, which is now the dining room; an elegant

staircase ascends to a spacious landing serving five

chambers. A thatched coach house stands to the east of the

house.

In 1862 Came Rectory secured for itself a niche in British

literary history when it became home to the Rev’d William

Barnes, the Dorset poet, or as one of his visitors, the Rev’d

Francis Kilvert described him, ‘the great idyllic Poet of Eng-

land’. Among Barnes’ more enduring works, now best

known in its later musical setting by Ralph Vaughan

Williams, is the poem My Orcha’d in Linden Lea.

Today, Barnes’ reputation has been overshadowed by his

fellow Dorset writer, Thomas Hardy, who acknowledged

Barnes’ influence and encouragement, and who, in 1883,

built his own house, Max Gate, a short distance from Came

Rectory. Thereafter, Hardy was a frequent visitor at the

Rectory, and after Barnes’ funeral in October 1886, Hardy

was moved to write The Last Signal as a tribute to his

friend.

William Barnes cut a distinctive figure with his eighteenth

century clerical dress, flowing white hair and patriarchal

beard; this, coupled with his literary fame ensured that

between 1862 and his death in 1886, there was a steady

stream of visitors including Coventry Patmore, William

Allingham, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Edmund Gosse,

William Palgrave, Francis Kilvert and Gerard Manley

Hopkins. Barnes’ daughter, Lucy Baxter (who wrote a

memoir of her father in 1887), described the house as ‘a

cosy little nest – a thatched cottage with wide eaves and

wider verandah, on whose rustic pillars, roses, clematis,

and honeysuckle entwine. It has a flowery lawn in front,

and a sheltering veil of trees at the side. The poet’s study

was a room on the upper floor, which overlooked the sunny

fruit garden [the walled garden], and here he could watch

the blossoms expanding and falling from his apple and

apricot trees, and see the breezes waving his feathery-

headed asparagus.’

A photograph of William Barnes and his family in the

garden gives a vivid impression of this rural idyll.

The house remained the property of the Church until 1958.

A subsequent owner is said to have allowed Christine

Keeler to use the house as a hide-away in the months

following the Profumo scandal. ‘Improvements’ were made

to the house during the 1960s, and the walled garden fell

into disuse. However, thanks to historic descriptions and

photographs, it has been possible for the present owners to

undertake an extensive programme of conservation,

including forming a new garden based on advice provided

by the late Rosemary Verey.

E. Warren Davis

PAGE 7 7 PATRON: HER GRACE THE DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE I SSUE 3

Old Came Rectory

England’s Finest Parsonage

John Goodall, Architectural Editor of Country Life, is

launching a search for England’s finest vicarage or

rectory.

Our historic parsonages constitute an astonishing archi-

tectural legacy. Built to house the rectors and vicars that

have served the parishes of the established church from

the Middle Ages to the present day, they are a remarka-

bly varied group of buildings. Large and small, ancient

and modern, their particular appeal lies in a distinctive

combination of fine architecture and idyllic setting:

parsonages are not only often large and handsome

houses set amidst mature trees and gardens, but they

commonly stand in attractive proximity to their church

at the very heart of towns and villages across the

kingdom.

It is to highlight the exceptional importance of these

buildings that Country Life, in association with Savills,

is seeking out England’s finest parsonage. This award is

not limited only to the parsonages that still house the

clergy, but also extends to those that have passed or

been sold into private hands over the course of time.

Since 1900, the Church of England has sold off large

numbers of historic parsonages. Some of these sales

have been controversial. Whatever their long term

wisdom, they have created a new group of owners,

many of whom remain passionately interested in the

history and architecture of these buildings.

Whether in church or lay ownership, parsonages remain

a crucial and much-loved feature of the English land-

scape. Yet these buildings rarely receive the public at-

tention they deserve. This award is intended to celebrate

these unsung masterpieces of English domestic

architecture.

A longer version of this article will be published in

Country Life on 17th April 2008 along with a nomina-

tion form. For further information please contact Miss

Susannah Glynn at Country Life. Tel. 020 3148 4442

susannah_glynn@freelance.ipcmedia.com

Contacts

P AT RO N: HE R GR ACE T HE DOW AGER DUCHE SS O F DEVO NSH IR E T HE REC TOR Y SO C IE TY

Hon.Sec. Charles Crosthwaite c/o Brown Rudnick 8 Clifford Street London W1S 2LQ 020 7851 6013 Secretary@rectorysociety.org.uk Membership and Newsletter: Mrs Christine Bland 296 Henley Road Caversham Reading RG4 6LS 0118 947 5826 Membership@rectorysociety.org.uk

Privacy or Sharing ? Do Rectory Society members welcome

sharing their details with other

members, or do they value their

privacy and wish to maintain it? This

question is already being asked of new

members, but we would like to know

from all members what they would

prefer.

Obviously, we cannot publish a

Members’ Handbook until we have

procured a full list of members who

wish to be included. A number of

new members have asked for their

details to remain private and this re-

quest will, of course, be respected.

With this Newsletter we include a card

which can be returned to Christine

Bland, Membership Secretary, with

your preference stated.

Carnbee House, Fife, a fine old Scottish

Manse built in 1910.