The rectory at Market Deeping

Some years ago, a past rector of the parish church gave me a tour of the old rectory at Market Deeping when it was still the home of the incumbent and explained rather ruefully that although his parishioners considered him lucky to be living in such grand style, the house had a reputation as the coldest in Lincolnshire while his wife who accompanied us nodded furiously in agreement, thinking no doubt of their soaring energy bills.

That winter outing was certainly a chilly one despite the warm interest in one of our most ancient buildings dating from the early 14th century and reputed to be the oldest inhabited parsonage in England. The rectory, built of stone quarried from nearby Clipsham in Rutland, can still be found tucked away behind St Guthlac’s Church in Church Street although now much changed and altered.

Tradition has it that the house was originally built as the refectory or dormitory of a monastic cell for Thorney, Crowland or Sempringham, although there is no documentary proof for this but it was converted into a rectory after the Dissolution of the Monasteries with alterations during the mid-18th century. Past ministers have reputedly been driven from the house on two occasions, once by vagrants during the 16th century when he was forced to live in the church tower and again during the English Civil War a century later.

There were further extensions to the building in 1832 finished in the Gothic style by Thomas Pilkington, the ecclesiastical architect based at nearby Bourne, who was instructed by the then rector, the Rev William Hildyard, who ministered to this parish from 1828 until his death in 1875 and whose coat of arms was added to the tall gable in the garden frontage.

The rectory building has been Grade I listed since 1952 and contains a wealth of fascinating period features including a mediaeval entrance door with an unusual hinge, the original timber roof structure with oak gargoyles at the base of the trusses, all fine examples of ancient wood carving dating from the 14th century. There is also a sweeping Jacobean staircase with moulded balustrades from 1761 in the main hall, ingeniously contrived to serve three levels, and an open fireplace with a carved inset and an inscription which reads: "Pees to this hows."

Other partial reconstructions and alterations have been carried out over the years although the building no longer serves its original purpose but has been tastefully modernised and divided into two private residences.

The rectory in 1915.

Return to Market Deeping