Frozen Parsons and Liquid Assets

Sometimes I realise how lucky I am. Being able to live in my family's ancestral Great House (now officially owned by an offshore trust), and charging the 50 or so resident Beaker Folk rent, means I live in warmth within the reasonably-sized Archdruid's Suite. Of course, the Beaker Folk are responsible for cleaning their own rooms, and the corridors and dining hall, on the George Herbert principle of sweeping the floors as for God's laws. So yes, the lot has fallen well for me.

Then I read the complaints about the selling off of the Church of England's old parsonages and I wonder. The basic complaint being that the old-style vicars used to live pretty much in mansions, and these days they want to live in 4-bed detached houses with a study and a double garage, and not have to pay for servants.

An old rectory

There's a few things wrong with Olivia Rudgard's article. Mostly that it's one-sided and uncritical. But to be more specific:

The headline suggests the Church of England has lost £8bn by selling off old parsonages. This based on Anthony Jennings guessing that 8,000 houses have been sold off that would now be worth a million quid each.

Thing is, this would only be true if the C of E dioceses had taken that money as fivers and had a giant bonfire with them. And I don't think that's happened all that often - though I know there's some odd types in Ely diocese. I know property has risen in value, but if they'd actually taken that money and used it for ministry, for mission, for buying smaller vicarages that would also have grown in value - then I don't reckon that's such a disaster.

Then the claim that  "They [clergy] feel some kind of guilt that they're living in a better house than everybody else, which is ridiculous, because everyone knows it's a parish parsonage and not their house."

Well, do you know, I've never heard that as an explanation of why a clergy might want to live in a modern house. I've heard them complain they can't sleep at night because the old vicarage is in the middle of town and right next to a pub that's open late into the night. And of course the vicarage was invented before karaokes, PAs and discos were invented. I'm aware that some old parsonages are freezing cold, and the diocese don't necessarily have the money to put in serious amounts of heating and double glazing for an unnecessary number of rooms. I've known a bachelor priest  living just with his mum in a 12-bedroom, 3-floor vicarage with extensive wine cellar. And I've wondered how the typical clergy family can keep such a leviathan of a building dusted, hoovered and clean. And it's lovely when you've got an acre of garden - but it don't half take some maintenance, when the clergy's busy tending the flock and the clergy's spouse has a full time job and they've got a few kids around the place.

Anthony Jennings goes on to tell us, "In the past everyone knew where the vicar was and now they wouldn't, because he's on a housing estate."

And that's the nub of it, isn't it? This isn't because huge vicarages are an asset to the Church or the community. It's because there are people who really still want to live in Bertie Wooster's England - where every village has a vicar, and every vicar has a huge vicarage. Where parsons are important persons (and, implicitly, all of them are blokes) and the Church is a power in the land.

Well, that's not where we are. The vicars are already full-time busy and probably don't need people doffing their tatty caps to them because they live in a big house. They need decent, warm, easy to maintain housing.

So it's a shame about East Coker vicarage. But it's not a building for an associate priest. The Church doesn't need listed vicarages and massive maintenance bills. And it's not like TS Eliot is buried in the rose garden.