Monument record 2416/11/1 - Site of medieval vicarage

{1}The Abbot of Peterborough held the Rectory and the advowson of the church of Oundle throughout the medieval period, but in 1477 the abbot was granted licence to appropriate the church of Oundle with all the lands, tenements, rents and to establish for the first time a vicarage.

The vicarage continued in existence through the 16th century, and its location can be accurately reconstructed from the 1565 survey. At that time the vicarage or ‘vicar's manse’ comprised a tenement, orchard and attached garden between the Burystead manor and the Horsemarket, and the church and Bury Street.

It is noted in the survey that in a rental of 1481-2 the vicarage house was tenement of William Baker and was held from the Abbot of Peterborough for 3/6d per annum. This had been a strip of the manor garden and had been built upon previously by John Wise. In the same rental William Harrycott held another parcel of the garden of the Burystead manor house 30 ft. long for 2/- per annum. In 1542 this was rented by Richard Morton for 2/4d but by 1565 this too had been annexed to the vicarage: it ‘contained as much as is inclosed as lyeth to the street from the corner wall of the vicarage in the lords garden and there shots in again in a corner and so now this, William Baker's tenement and the lord's garden is made a vicarage by a composition of the Abbot of Peterborough as seen in a survey in the vicar's hands.’ The tenement of William Baker was held in 1481 for a rent of 3/6d, exactly the sum of the rent of the two plots of manor garden held in 1400 by Wm.Botiller and John Sperhankes. These must be one and the same piece of land.

<1> Foard G.; Ballinger J.;, 2002, Northamptonshire Extensive Urban Survey: Oundle, Section 3.2.3 Vicarage (unchecked) (Report). SNN102637.

Record last edited

Sep 7 2012 9:28AM