A license to re-build the parsonage house in 1690 states that ‘the decays were through the neglect and the long non-residence of the incumbent’ (Tobias Conyers 1676 – 1687). It adds that ‘the old house is very incomodiously built and situated’. There is no account of where the building was. (Excavations along the Parsonage road in 2015 indicated the footings of what was probably the first building.
The parsonage house was built in 1690 by the Revd. Gilbert Atkinson, Rector, who also renovated the barns and enclosed the gardens. So there it was – 2 kitchens, 2 attic rooms and 3 cellars, sufficient for a lordly rector and his household.
Not so, in 1841 when the Rev Y.P. Savile became rector, he chose to reside at ‘The Cedars’ (pictured right) adjacent to St Oswald’s and he instituted proceedings to construct a new rectory house built of stone by the famous Salvin erected near to the church and school house.