It is clear that some of the rectory houses thus described were like some of the smaller manor houses, enclosed by moat or wall, and the entrance protected by a gate-house, and that the house contained all the accommodation needed by a small squire.[160] But there were smaller houses more suited to the means of a poor vicar or a parish chaplain.[161] Thus, on the settlement of the Vicarage of Great Bentley, Essex, in 1323, it was required that a competent house should be built for the vicar, with a sufficient curtilage, where the parish chaplain has been used to abide. At the settlement of the Vicarage of St. Peter’s, Colchester, the impropriators, the Convent of St. Botolph, were required to prepare a competent house for the vicar in the ground of the churchyard, where a house was built for the parish chaplain. At Radwinter, Essex, in 1610, there were two houses attached to the benefice, on the south side of the church towards the west end, one called “the Great Vicarage, and in ancient time the Domus Capellanorum, and the other the Less Vicarage,” which latter “formerly served for the ease of the parson; and, as appears by evidence, first given to the end that if any of the parish were sick, the party might be sure to find the parson or his curate near the church, ready to go and visit him.” There are little houses in some churchyards which may have been houses for the parish chaplain. At Laindon, Essex, a small timber-house is built on to the west end of the church.[162] The Chapel of our Lady at Great Horkesley, Essex, has the west end walled off and divided into two stories for a priest’s residence.[163]
Laindon Church, Essex.
The question of dilapidations of the parsonage house and its dependent buildings is not a matter of much general interest, but it was then, as it is now, of much practical importance to the beneficed clergy, and it is worth while to say a few words about it. We find examples in the episcopal registers which we assume represent the universal practice.
In the register of John de Grandisson, Bishop of Exeter, June 21, 1328, a commission was issued to inquire into the defects in the church and its furniture and the manse of the Rectory of Lydeford, by the carelessness and neglect of Stephen Waleys, late deceased. The commissioners were laudably prompt in action, for, on the 4th July, they made their return of defects, etc., to the amount of 42s.; and the bishop at once issued his mandate that the amount should be paid out of the goods of the defunct rector.[164] There was a similar process in the same year at Didesham.
