Des Res

Back in the ancient, far-off days before I came to Swanvale Halt, I applied for the incumbency of Aybourne, a living with a former vicarage which was so colossal it now houses an entire junior school. The existing parsonage house was substantial enough, but it didn't tempt me (it didn't help that the previous vicar had given his dogs free run of the first floor and it wasn't quite clear what would be done to make good the damage). Aybourne, though, is not the only Surrey church whose priest used to live in some style. 

A couple of weeks ago I visited the church at Ewhurst whose incumbent lives in a nice post-WW2 house. I complimented the nice arched window lighting the stairs landing to be told that they'd had to have a blind put over it as otherwise from the churchyard you could see straight into the upstairs loo. The rectory replaced what is now the Old Rectory, a care home and which, when first built in 1874, looked like this:

In fact the Old Rectory has been expanded a bit to suit its current role, but it's pretty substantial. However, the 1874 building replaced an earlier one which, when I saw a print of it in the church history booklet, positively made me gulp:

What on earth inspired the Revd C.A. Steuart to have a slightly humbler version of Strawberry Hill constructed at Ewhurst we don't know, but its tragic demolition was blamed on its 'dilapidated and unsafe' condition - surely an excuse for his successor who for some unaccountable reason scorned living in a set from a Gothic novel.