Cuxton Rectory - a history: coming to an end...?

Note: This is an update to the original post from 20 December 2021, which I have re-written in the light of more information and recent events, and republished here...

Cuxton Rectory, pictured in 1968 not long after completion

The current Cuxton Rectory (pictured above) is a pleasant modern-looking brick-built house dating back to 1966. For better or worse, it replaced the truly elegant late Georgian-style Rectory building that was built in 1833 by the then Rector of Cuxton, Robert William Shaw.

Cuxton Rectory, c.1919...

Built from locally-sourced yellow Kentish bricks and having a slate roof, it was designed by architect Mr. Whitehead of Maidstone and built by a Mr. Tarsell. Construction work commenced on 8 May 1832 and was completed on 17 April the following year at a total cost of £1178-14s (a project that would cost about £1.9 million today, on a commodity income value basis).

Canon Shaw was by all accounts quite a wealthy man, but not surprisingly over half of the money for the rectory had to be borrowed, which it was under the terms of the Relief Of The Poor Act (Gilbert’s Act) of 1782. Whilst giving government money to rich people seems a very 2021 thing to do, the Gilbert Act was intended to bring the gentry into closer involvement in poor relief administration, and Canon Shaw did indeed do much to improve the lot of the local population (such as building Cuxton’s first school in 1849) in exchange for the loan that helped to fund his splendid new rectory.

South Eastern Gazette, 20 March 1832

Canon Shaw chose the site for his new rectory with good judgement. It was both nearer to the church and well above the damp valley where the original Parsonage was located (in a spot that is now occupied by the existing Scout Hall). 

His chosen site was owned by Lord Darnley, but Shaw agreed a land swop arrangement with him, exchanging some glebe land for the altogether much more agreeable location where the new rectory was to be built.

The Parsonage appears to have been a rather horrible place to live. The short six-month tenure of William Laud as Rector of St. Michael's in 1610 was largely down to him contracting the "Kentish Ague", a form of malaria very much present in the poorly drained surroundings of the time. (Happily for him, William Laud recovered from his bout of 'ague' well enough to go on to become Archbishop of Canterbury in 1633, a post he held until 1645, when he was executed on trumped-up charges of treason - a tale for elsewhere!)

Cuxton Rectory, 1868, watercolour by Emily
Clare Harvey (Canon Shaw's daughter-in-law)

Indeed, many of Cuxton's rectors chose to live elsewhere: Caleb Parfect, Rector from 1719 until his death in 1770, was to call the parsonage "aguish" and lamented that he struggled to find tenants that he could let the building out to as a result. The Rev. Parfect himself chose to live at his other benefice in Shorne in the summer, and at his house on Rochester during the winter.

 As Charles Moore wrote in answer to a questionnaire sent to him by the Bishop of Rochester in 1780:

“…I have expended some hundred pounds and made a considerable part of the walls brick which before were only thin lath and plaster, yet from the great indifference of the house itself and its very low, damp situation (being the very lowest spot in the whole parish, it can never be made comfortable or healthy residence at certain times of the year…”

Then as now, it seems that a nice house such as the rectory will always attract the attention of ne'er-do-wells and indeed, early in the morning of 6th December 1849, a 19-year old by the name of Thomas Godden from Strood broke into the rectory and stole a variety of small trinkets. He was soon apprehended by Robert Sampson, the local constable, and the stolen goods recovered. Godden was sent for trial and in March 1850 was sentenced to seven years' transportation.

It was during Shaw's tenure that the Rectory and its grounds became a centre for social events, initially to raise funds for the Rector's ambitious plans for the rebuilding of the church (which were to come to fruition in 1866). These events were, however, initially very much for "the elite", which is how the attendees of a "GRAND FANCY BAZAAR for the sale of LADIES' WORK' (which was held in the Rectory grounds on the 15th and 16th of June 1853 and which was to raise £150) were described in Maidstone Journal and Kentish Advertiser reports from June 1853.

In 1858, Canon Shaw spent another £600 on the Rectory, enlarging the drawing room and adding a kitchen and over-room extension, as well as enlarging the stables and the coach house. The stable block was situated alongside the old Parsonage in Bush Road. The Rectory had an extensive garden and in 1875, the Rectory stable was converted into a gardener’s house at a cost of £162-11s-2d.

Canon Colson, c,1900...

Canon Shaw’s successor, Canon Colson, was also a keen gardener, fencing off the Rectory Garden in 1875 when he took office and building a heated greenhouse alongside Rectory Cottage at a cost of £140.  In 1876 he founded the Cottage Gardener’s Society, being of the opinion that:

“Few things add more to the temporal comforts and well being of a labouring man’s family than his taking pride in his garden. It may help lead him to better things – certainly keep him from worse…”

If only the robber barons who build our modern houses thought like Canon Colson.

The first cottage garden show was held in that year and the subsequent shows, held in the Rectory grounds,  became an established fixture in Cuxton’s social calendar with Canon Colson’s hothouse plants (arranged by his gardener, Mr. Wilson) being a centre of attraction for many years. 

Unlike Canon Shaw's events, these were much more egalitarian affairs, with a large and enthusiastic attendance from the villagers of Cuxton. A report in the Tonbridge Wells Standard from 29 August 1884 depicts a lively afternoon, with large displays of fruit, vegetable and flowers, and prizes for the best them judged by Lord Darnley's gardener, the Lord and Lady Darnley themselves gracing the occasion, and all to musical accompaniment by a band from the Royal Engineers.  

The Cottage Garden Society, c. 1900.

A map from 1867 shows the extensive garden of the Rectory and the associated glebe land that stretched from the churchyard down to Bush Road. The map shows the area laid out as a park, with groups of trees and with Arrow Cottage, another cottage (now 35 Bush Road) and Rectory Cottage and stables forming the northern boundary along to the corner opposite the White Hart. 

Behind Rectory Cottage was a small pond, to the west of which was the main vegetable garden and an orchard.  Around the rectory were formal gardens and trees. There was even, right up until the 1930s,  a tennis court, located at the top of May Street. Canon Colson himself was an enthusiastic tennis player in his younger days, perhaps overly so: a report in the Maidstone Journal and Kentish Advertiser from 30 August 1880 tells us that he "broke the small bone in one of his legs" while playing.   

OS Map of 1869, showing the Rectory and the glebe land...

Canon Toone, Canon Colson’s successor, continued in the tradition of gardening Canons. He employed Jack and Charles Cogger as gardeners, helped by Walter (Wick) and Jim Cogger. The Cogger family had a long association with the church dating back to William, who was the church clerk in 1850, and continued to maintain that involvement until quite recently (when Colin Cogger finally retired as a church bell ringer in 2022).

Canon Toone also used the rectory as a social centre for the village, particularly during and after WW1.

Convalescent soldiers from Cobham Hall military hospital attending a party at the Rectory. They were presented with gifts of cigarettes
and sweets by the two young girls, Lily Peters (left, to become Lilian Bennett, landlady of the White Hart until 1969 and wife of
landlord Bill) and Enid Symons (daughter of the manager of the Clinkham cement works, latterly Rugby Portland at Halling). 

As was the case with so many of Cuxton’s historic buildings, neglect and the passage of time sadly took its toll on the Rectory.  In 1935 some glebe land and Rectory Cottage was sold to Mr. George Cogger (which was to become Cogger's farm shop) to fund modernisation of the rectory. 

The Cogger family, tree-felling in the Rectory Garden, 1958. Looking on is Mrs. Rae, wife of Rector Charles Rae...

The Rectory gardens and remaining glebe land were still used regularly by the village as a community asset. As recently as the early sixties, the Scouts used to hold their annual jamboree - 'Scoutana' - on the Bush Road glebe land next to the scout hall (where the Glebe mini-estate is now) and the Rectory grounds and basement were used by the local youth club.

By 1961, when the Reverend Richard Allington Smith came to Cuxton, the building was in a sorry state, its roof timbers riddled with rot and according to the Reverend himself, draughty and difficult to heat. 

In January 1964, the Reverend Richard Allington Smith decided to sell off Rectory Meadow - no more Scoutana events there - to fund church repairs and to "prevent his own salary being a drain on parish resources". 

'Scoutana', 1961 - the White Hart is in the background...

It was around then that plans for a new rectory also began to emerge. It would doubtless have cost a lot of money to repair the rectory, but it seemed the good rector didn't favour that option. Sure enough, a survey from the diocese confirmed that view. Only a cynic would suggest that the demolition of the rectory was driven by the likelihood of it (along with many old buildings in Cuxton that also happened to get demolished at the time) being given listed building status (as were both St, John's and St. Michaels churches in 1966), which would have prevented such an act of vandalism.

There was some suggestion from the diocese that the old Rectory be sold, the garden sub-divided and a new rectory built there, a plan which may have saved the building. The incumbent rector was having none of that.

"I made a counter-suggestion that the present house be demolished, a new rectory built nearby and the entire garden retained in its present state as a venue for fetes and similar functions and as a site for possible parish buildings," wrote the Rev. Allington-Smith in the March 1965 edition of the church magazine, claiming that his new rectory would be "a work of architectural equal, if not superior, to the old..."

The Rectory, 1964, just two years prior to demolition...

I feel that not many people would agree with that sentiment. The new rectory was built just to the north next to the old one and was completed in September 1966. In October 1966, the last meeting of the "Cellar Club" (the youth club that ran its regular activities in the rectory basement) was held and the Rev. Allington-Smith moved into his nice new rectory in November 1966.

Despite opposition from the Parish Council, the old rectory was demolished on November 14th 1966, leaving the smaller and undoubtedly more practical but far less elegant structure we see today. 

The Rev. Allington-Smith did not get to enjoy his new rectory for very long: he was appointed to St. Margaret's at Rainham and was replaced by the Rev. Ernest E. Turner in September 1967.

Canon Shaw’s Rectory, possibly above all other buildings that have been lost from Cuxton, could and should have been saved. It seems staggeringly short-sighted to have allowed its destruction, even by 1960’s standards.

And now it seems that the history of the rectory (and possibly that of St. Michaels church itself) may be coming to a close. In November 2024 Roger Knight, the Rector of St. Michaels since 1987, was compelled to retire at the age of 70 under arcane church regulations. The diocese seem in no hurry to replace him and instead have (so I understand) decided to sell off the rectory instead. Another mini-housing estate seems the inevitable outcome of that.

Cuxton rectory, September 2025

About 3,500 churches in the UK have closed since 2013, while more than 900 places of worship are on Historic England’s “heritage at risk” register. I fear for our little church of St. Michaels, especially since the advent of the church hierarchy's plan to strip all decision-making powers away from local PCCs (GS2222) in its bid to accelerate the closure of all those pesky unfashionable little village churches that have supported them for the past 500 years. 

The church is not short of money. The Church of England's endowment fund alone generated a 10.3% return of a staggering £1.1 billion in 2024, while the total value of the fund grew to £11.1 billion. The income for the Church of England is much larger, encompassing parish income, investments and other contributions.  Sure, the church want to divert resources to churches in poorer or deprived areas and that's just fine. Cuxton wouldn't be classed as 'poor' or 'deprived'.

But the C of E are swimming in money. They could easily support its loyal little churches like Cuxton as well as doing all of its evangelical-seeming stuff. It could try and reinvigorate St. Michaels with a new appointment in a bid to increase congregation size and community involvement in it, instead of running it down or shutting it down. 

We await developments - probably of the housing variety...

References:

1)  Cuxton: A Kentish Village by Derek Church (published by Arthur J Cassell Ltd, 1976, ISBN 0 903253 12 7), Chapter 4, pp35-38, Chapter 6, pp59-60.

2) Church magazines and vestry/PCC records, Medway Archives Centre.

3) "FindMyPast" online newspaper archives.