Pre-reformation Clergy House, Alfriston.
(By kind permission of the publishers of the Builder.)
There are others of stone at Congresbury (Somerset), King’s Stanley (Gloucester), Wonstone (Hants.), Notgrove (Gloucester); of timber at Helmsley (Yorkshire); and many others. And, just as many farmhouses which were once small manor houses still retain their ancient mediæval features disguised by modern alterations, so there are many parsonage houses in which the original house of the fourteenth or fifteenth century still remains, and may be traced by a skilful eye amidst the subsequent additions.
We derive our fullest information about the old parsonage houses, however, from literary sources, from the settlements of vicarages which describe the old rectory house, or dictate how the new vicarage house shall be built; from the old terriers which describe the then existing houses, and from the inventories of wills which go from room to room, naming the rooms, and detailing the furniture in them.
Thus a deed of 1356 describes the rectory house of Kelvedon, in Essex, existing at that date—and how long before that date we do not know—which the Abbot and Convent of Westminster, in the settlement of a vicarage there, assigned to the vicar as his residence. The deed describes it as—
One hall situate in the manor of the said abbot and convent near the said church, with a soler and chamber at one end of the hall, and with a buttery and cellar at the other. Also one other house[146] in three parts, namely, a kitchen with a convenient chamber in the end of the said house for guests, and a bakehouse. Also one other house in two parts next the gate at the entrance of the manor for a stable and cow-house. He (the vicar) shall also have a convenient grange, to be built within a year at the expense of the prior and convent. He shall also have the curtilage with the garden adjoining the hall on the north side enclosed as it is with hedges and ditches.[147]
The present vicarage house occupies the old site, and its offices, gardens, and surroundings help to illustrate this description.
In a deed of Richard of Thornely, Chaplain of Wasseford, it is stated that when he was presented by the Prior and Convent of Hatfield to the vicarage of Silverley, he bound himself by his own free will to build a house there, with a hall, a chamber, and a kitchen.[148]
In 1352, the Bishop of Winchester decreed that the Prior and Convent of Merton, the impropriators of the benefice of Kingston-on-Thames, should provide
a competent manse for the vicar, viz. a hall with two rooms, one at one end of the hall, and the other at the other end, with a drain to each, and a suitable kitchen with fireplace and oven, and a stable for six horses, all covered with tiles, and completed within one year, such place to remain to the use of the said vicar and his successors.[149]
The deed of settlement of the vicarage of Bulmer, Essex, in 1425, describes the vicarage house as consisting of—