Rectories

According to Blomefield's History of Norfolk published in 1806, the earliest reference to a rectory in Tasburgh appeared in the Domesday Book which recorded that the rector, appointed by the prior of Bromholm, had a house and ten acres of glebe. Glebe was land dedicated for the benefit of the village priest, and in Tasburgh formed a block of land between Low Road and the river Tas, on part of which Glebe Cottage (pictured below) now stands.

It's not known whether the first rectory stood on the same site or whether it was somewhere closer to the church, but early in the 12th century a new rectory was built on the glebe. It would have been a thatched timber framed house, almost certainly with a central hall, open to the rafters. Much later, probably in the 16th century, the open hearth in the hall was replaced by two fireplaces and chimneys, making it possible to divide the hall into four rooms, two each at ground and first floor levels. Wings were also added to each end of the building so that by 1629, when an inventory was prepared following the death of the Rev. William Temple, the rectory contained eleven rooms, including an entry, study, parlour, buttery and a room for making malt and brewing, and outside was a yard with a barn, stables and a cow house. Manorial Court records of property transfers reveal that a now disappeared track, called Parsons Mere, ran up the western side of The Limes (not the track on the eastern side of Cottage Farm) leading directly from Low Road to the church across the Hill Fort enclosure. Its line is still marked by an old field boundary ridge in the ground below the bank of the enclosure.

By the end of the 18th century, the rectory was no longer being used as such, with the rector living elsewhere. The Rev. Burroughs (1797-1832) was also rector of the two Long Stratton parishes and of Morningthorpe and lived at Stratton St Michael rectory, and his successor, The Rev. George Preston (1832-36), lived at Stanfield Hall between Hethel and Wymondham. By then the old rectory was in a derelict state and was largely demolished, with just part of one wing, now forming part of Glebe Cottage, being retained as a separate dwelling. Indeed the shape of the building shown on the map attached to the Enclosure Award would suggest that even by 1818 the rectory had been reduced, and the census return for 1911 discloses just four remaining rooms, presumably two up and two down. Two archaeological test pits dug in the garden in 2017 as part of a village wide project, didn't reveal any of the demolished house but did find a stoned hard surface in front of the current building, possibly representing a courtyard. However from what was originally the site of a pond, a test pit in Harvey Close produced quantities of pottery dating from the 1100s through to the 1500s, indicating that there must have been a house of status in the vicinity, possibly the rectory, using the pond as a rubbish dump.

The Rev. Henry Preston, a distant relative of his predecessor, was appointed as rector in 1837, and by chance that same year the owner of Old Hall Farm decided to sell up which enabled the purchase an area of land to the west of the church on which to build a new rectory. It is not clear whether he personally bought the land and paid for the construction or whether the Church met the cost, as the house was occupied by successive rectors through to 1983 but the cost was reported at the time to be £1,000, equivalent to £1.2m in 2021. The Tithe Apportionment Award of 1840 records The Rev Preston as being the owner of the property though that is not conclusive either way because as Rector he was also shown as the owner of all other church property in the village including the previous rectory and the adjoining glebe meadows.

Until the beginning of the 1970s the cost of living remained relatively stable and the status of the village rector was still regarded as almost equivalent to that of the squire, but as inflation took hold the Church was unable to afford matching increases in the pay of parish priests and as a result big old rectories, many of which were Listed Buildings, became increasingly unaffordable for the rector to run, and expensive for the Church to repair. The solution was to build smaller new houses for clergy and to sell off the bigger and often very attractive older houses. This is exactly what happened in Tasburgh, with a new rectory being built in the grounds of the old one in 1983 and the old Rectory being purchased by John Mixer, an interior designer from Elm Hill in Norwich, who restored the property and made the current garden. 40 years later the property was sold again for over £1 million.

 That however merely delayed the need to also reduce the numbers of clergy, with the last resident Rector, The Rev. Ian Bishop, leaving in 2002. Since then the New Rectory has been home to a succession of curates and vicars as part of the Tas Valley Team Ministry, responsible for five other local parishes as well as Tasburgh.