10
1985 - Another new vicarage but an old access problem
Some unpopular plans
In June 1984 the Diocese announced plans to sell the old vicarage built by Avery Moore in 1855 and to build a new one in its grounds. The plans showed that the new vicarage was to be built on the western boundary of the Public Walk. To reach the road, access would be required across it. Two designs, described as ‘A’ and ‘B’, were submitted for planning approval (1) where they met with considerable local opposition. There were objections to the style of the designs and to the desirability of building anything at all on that particular site. Planning permission was refused for both designs.
The Church Authorities appealed against this decision and, at the same time, submitted two further designs ‘C’ and ‘D’. Local people, the Romsey and District Society and Test Valley Borough Council (the Planning Authority following local government reorganisation in 1974) objected to the schemes on the grounds of their appearance and their impact on the surroundings. In July 1985 these designs were also refused.
The Church then mounted another appeal and the subsequent inquiry began in February 1986. It lasted for two days during which the secretary of the Diocese of Winchester Diocesan Parsonages made the point, which became important in the final decision made on this application, that the Church could not operate efficiently unless the vicar lived close by. It will be remembered that the Reverend Avery Moore had also expressed the need to live near the church when justifying the building of his new vicarage in 1855. At the time, he was living in Abbotswood, some two miles from the church.
The result of the appeal came in a letter dated 22nd May 1986 from the Department of Environment and the Department of Transport. They had decided to accept schemes ‘C’ and ‘D’ and, in doing so, made the following notes:
In section (9): "the council was not entirely satisfied that the whole of the triangular space was in the ownership or control of the appellant [the Church]"
(The “triangular space” being the grassed area of the Public Walk)
And in section (14):
"the penetration of vehicles across the triangular space is not in the interests of conservation".
It had been previously noted on page 3 para 2 that:
"…on the advice of the Historic Buildings Council, the Secretary of State for the Environment has accepted that the Romsey conservation area is outstanding".
The new vicarage built in the 1980s.
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The government departments had taken note of the points made by local people, TVBC and the Romsey and District Society that this was indeed a very sensitive part of the conservation area.
The Romsey Advertiser noted that permission for schemes ‘C’ and ‘D’ was granted on the exceptional grounds that the new vicarage was needed so that the vicar could be close to the church. Permission to build the new vicarage had been granted nearly two years after the first application had been made. |
Local views - the church rooms controversy revisited
A clue as to why it had taken so long to agree planning permission for the new vicarage lies in a letter to The Romsey Advertiser from a local resident. She noted with some surprise that the planning consultant for the Church Commissioners had said that they were striving for "…a building that would fit in with the surrounding buildings including the modern ones; in particular the church rooms and the Magistrates Court".
Clearly, the writer did not think that the church rooms provided a good example for the design of the new vicarage. Another writer to the Romsey Advertiser recalled that many local people regretted the demolition of the old town hall to make way for the controversial design of the new church rooms and verger's house in 1966.
| This was a sorry tale. Apparently aware of the sensitivity of the site, Hampshire County Council (HCC), the Planning Authority at the time, had referred the planning application for the church rooms to the Royal Institute of British Architects who, in turn, appointed a special panel of architects to consider it. |
Church Hall and Verger's house built in the 1960s.
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In his report to HCC, the chairman of the panel wrote:
"The unique importance of this site merits a building of the highest quality. This should be referred to the County Panel and/or the Royal Fine Arts Commission. This design is completely unsympathetic with the surroundings.”
Ceremony at the site of the new Church Hall c1966.
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The County Planning Officer who received this report wrote to the Area Planning Officer noting this comment but saying that he thought the “mass” of the building was satisfactory. He also thought that the north and west elevations "should be more in the ecclesiastical idiom" and went on to suggest some minor changes to the exterior of the design. |
In another letter written some two weeks later he wrote that he had put the matter before the Council Panel. They did not feel that the case merited further reference, either to the Town Planning Committee of the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Architectural Association or to the Royal Fine Arts Commission. They also thought it unwise to give the building an ecclesiastical character.
With a number of minor changes, permission was given to demolish the old town hall, jail and jail yard and to replace it with what we have today
Subsequently, after the church rooms had been built, a local architect sought planning permission to put a pitched roof on the rooms which, together with other modifications, would have resulted in a building that looked attractive and would have sat comfortably alongside the old vicarage and Abbey Church. Hampshire County Council refused to give it planning permission
The problem of access to the new vicarage
In reaching their decision to grant planning permission for the new vicarage, the government departments had left TVBC to sort out the difficult problem of access.
| This was exactly the same problem that Avery Moore encountered in 1857 after he had acquired land behind his vicarage and wanted to drive his horse and carriage across the Public Walk. It will be remembered that the Corporation had fudged the issue by allowing Avery Moore access “in so far as they legally could” for a fee of one shilling per year. |
View across Public Walk along the vicarage drive to the Abbey Church (2004)
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So how, in 1986, would TVBC tackle the same problem?
Reporting on a TVBC Policy and Resources Committee held on 31st December 1986, The Romsey Advertiser recorded that following the meeting held to sort out the access problem, a Council official had said there was some doubt about the ownership of the land and that some of the conveyancing went back more than 100 years. The Church had been prepared to accept that the Council owned the land if the Council would allow access. Church and State would get together to try and resolve the problem.
A report in the Southern Evening Echo (headed: "Vicarage Row; Peace Nearer") notes that the Council’s Policy and Resources Committee had met in secret. Prior to the meeting, it noted, both the Church and the Council had claimed ownership of the triangular green next to the existing vicarage over which access would have to be created.
These newspaper reports were greeted with some astonishment in the letters column of The Romsey Advertiser in the following week. One writer reminded readers that the Church had had to appeal against TVBC’s refusal to give permission for the new vicarage but now the Council appeared to be doing all it could to make it possible. "What has happened?" she asked. Another reader wondered “…what is the collusion between Church and State?”
Access problem seemingly resolved - but not for one shilling per annum
Perhaps it is because negotiations between the Church and the council were carried out in secret that it is so difficult to piece together the reasoning which finally allowed access to the vicarage across the Public Walk. And it is harder still, since nothing has apparently changed, to understand why it was possible to grant access in 1986 but not possible when Avery Moore had requested it in 1857.
Nonetheless, as the driveway to the vicarage has been regularly in use since the new building was erected, the access problem has seemingly been resolved. Some method of circumventing a requirement of the Trust that the land should not be alienated must have been found despite the clear requirement in the Trust that the land should not be alienated. Surely, there had not been another fudge like the one in 1857?
Another surprising event at this time was that solicitors acting for the Church made use of a legal process to lay claim to part of the Public Walk. This was the triangular grassed area bounded by the two vicarages and The Abbey (road). In this process, a Statutory Declaration of Possession is made by a person who believes that he, or the body he represents, is the true owner of a disputed or neglected piece of land. In time, provided the Declaration is not challenged, the claimant can become the legal owner.
Accompanying the Declaration was a four-page document in which the Church’s solicitors reviewed a number of conveyances written between 1822 and 1856 and inferred that a transfer of land to the Church of some sort must have taken place although no conveyance was available to confirm that view. However, TVBC were aware of this claim and objected to it. The Church is not shown as the owner of this area on the Land Registry Index.
To make things more complicated HCC had at some time adopted The Abbey (road) that cuts across the Public Walk to Church Lane. It is not unusual in this situation for the County Council to adopt a verge at the side of the road but in this case, according to their records, they had adopted the whole of the triangular grassed area claimed by the Church. Hence, the grassed area, complete with oak tree and park bench, was considered officially to be highway land!
The other half of the Public Walk, the triangular area covered with patchwork tarmac, is at present used as an unregulated car park by the public at large although there are two notices claiming that it is reserved for the Church.
It is worth reflecting that in 1825, the town clerk, Henry Holmes, felt so strongly about the proposal by the Church to put a few headstones near the west wall of the Church that he raised a petition to stop it (see page 5). And he got the support of Romsey people and succeeded in his appeal. His objection to the Church's proposal was that the headstones would spoil the view of the west end of the abbey church. It is a sad reflection on our times that we have allowed this piece of land which lies within the curtilage of the Abbey Church (a Grade 1 listed building) and in the most sensitive part of a conservation area to be used as if it were a piece of waste land.
1. Copies of letters and documents relating to the building of the new vicarage are held on microfiche at the TVBC Planning Office in Duttons Road, Romsey.
