In 1584, a return of all Church land was called for by the Bishop.
The Tytherington terrier of glebe land includes 'One dwelling house, a
barn and one orchard containing half an acre'. This is the first
known reference to a vicarage. The vicar, John Lacey, probably
spent much of his time farming and lived in an ordinary messuage (a
dwelling house with outbuildings and land) like most of his flock.
We do not know where his dwelling house was sited; it may have been at
the entrance to the churchyard, where Church Cottage now stands.
Following the Restoration of the Monarchy, William Elbridge was
inducted as Vicar of Tytherington in 1662, and at once started to build
a new vicarage. He made a note in the Church Register as follows:
' Ano Dni 1663 The vicarage - house at Tedrington was built from the
ground by Will Elbridge Vicar. It cost building 133:00:00.'
For another 250 years, the vicarage was on this site.
In 1787, Rev J Hardwicke wrote in the Church Register of Burials: 'The Barn, belonging to the Vicarage, was rebuilt June 1787; and also the Stable, Garden Walls etc., at the expense of the Vicar'.
The terrier of the glebe lands in 1807 gives a description of the vicarage: 'One house tiled situated in the Garden containing three bays of building, having a Parlour, Hall, Kitchen, two Pantrys, three Bedchambers, not very lofty, two closets, and a brewhouse at the North End, beyond the kitchen;-One Garden; One Barn, and a Stable contiguous covered with Pantile, standing in the back court, which, with a Privy in the Garden, were rebuilt by the present Vicar, about the year 1787.' But maintenance may have been neglected, for only three years later, the same Vicar was pleading with the Bishop for a licence to be absent for two years because of 'the insufficiency of the house of residence...'.
Photographs above and below show the Vicarage (now the Manor House) c 1890
In 1817 the Rev George Wade Green was presented to the living, a
young man in his first vicarage. He set about rebuilding the
vicarage with the same energy with which he dealt with parish affairs.
He mortgaged the profits of the vicarage to the Governors of Queen
Anne's Bounty for securing the sum of £500, and by 1819 the new vicarage
was complete. The buildings are described in the 1828 terrier as
follows:
One house partly slated and partly tiled situate in the garden
containing a dining room, drawing room, hall, study, kitchen, Brewhouse,
two pantrys, dairy, seven bedchambers and one dressing room. A stable,
coach house, greenhouse, cowhouse, 2 pig-sties and calls house. The
whole of which was built by the present Vicar excepting the kitchen, one
pantry, part of the study and two bedrooms in the years 1818 and 1819.'
The Baptism Register contains a confirmatory note: (the Rev. Mr Green)
'.... who rebuilt the front of and enlarged the Vicarage house.' Mr
Elbridge's vicarage of 1663 would have been similar in size - and social
status - to several other contemporary houses built by prosperous yeoman
farmers in the village. such as Bishop's Farmhouse, or Pendick's. But Mr
Green's vicarage of 1819, with its 'drawing room', 'dressing room', and
seven bedchambers, is larger and less provincial than any other building
in the parish, even than the neighbouring house of the Lord of the
Manor.
By 1830 Mr Green had moved on, and a certain somnolence seems to have
settled on the Established Church. Nothing of note was done to church or
vicarage until after the death of the vicar, in 1881. The new vicar
(Rev. G H Jackson) and the young 'Squire' (Hardwicke Lloyd Hardwicke)
both came to the parish at the same time, and must have found many
aspects of village life in need of revitalising.
In 1884, the Church was extensively restored, and for the next forty
years successive vicars lived, and brought up families, in the vicarage.
which doubtless would have been reasonably maintained.
The post First War years saw the Church's glebe land being sold. In
1925, it was the turn of the vicarage and its garden; they were sold to
Squire Hardwicke for £2,520, and a new vicarage was built at the top of
Stow Hill (1928-30). Hardwicke, now over 70, made considerable
alterations to the old vicarage, renamed it 'The Manor', and moved
across from The Grange. He died in 1935, and the house was sold.
Subsequent occupants were Francis G Jackson, Ernest
J Partridge, Francis E Hill, Roger D Marcus (who added the portico), and
Andrew E Dawson.
Click on the thumbnails below to enlarge the pictures
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| Manor House 2013 | Rev Arkle & villages ladies in eastern dress outside the Vicarage (now the Manor House) c 1906 |