Vanished Cuxton: Canon Shaw's Rectory...

Today's Cuxton Rectory, pictured in 1965 just after completion

The current Cuxton Rectory (pictured above) is a pleasant modern-looking brick-built house dating back to 1965. 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 (about £180,000 today).

Cuxton Rectory, 1868, watercolour by Emily Clare Harvey

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.

Canon Shaw’s rectory replaced the original Parsonage that was located down the hill from the church at the bottom of the valley in Bush Road, in a spot that is now occupied by the existing Scout Hall. The Parsonage appears to have been a damp, rather horrible place to live. 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…”

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 fruit, flower and vegetable show was held in that year and the show 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.

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. 

35 Bush Road, c.1910 and c.1970, once part of the Rectory glebe estate

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, at one a time, even a tennis court, located where the top of May Street is.

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

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. 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.

Despite opposition from the Parish Council, the rectory was demolished in 1965 and replaced by the smaller and undoubtedly more practical but far less elegant structure we see today. Much of the glebe land was sold off at around the same time for housing, hence the name of the mini-estate on Bush Road, The Glebe.

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

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.

Unfortunately we seem to be returning to those days, when money, vested interests and short-sighted expedience took precedence over the quality of local life…

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.