Linden House Eversholt

 
Linden House February 2016

Linden House was originally listed by the Ministry of Works in October 1952, when it was the rectory; the listing being updated in March 1987. It is Grade II, of special interest. It dates from the early 18th century and was reworked later in that century. It is built of red brick with some vitrified brick and has a clay tiled roof. The building comprises two storeys with attics and is built in an L-shape. 

According to G H Fowler’s work on the 1764 map and accompanying field book the owner and occupier in 1764 and 1795 was Francis Cook. However, by 1838, the date of the tithe map, it belonged to Ann Sandys.  

Ann was the widow of Thomas Sandys, a surgeon who died in London in 1816. In his will Thomas left his house at Eversholt to his wife and then to his brother Edwin and Edwin’s heirs, Thomas and Ann having no children of their own. Evidence suggests that Thomas and Edwin were sons of the rector of Eversholt, John Sandys who died in 1809. Ann Sandys therefore is no doubt the Mrs Sandys who owns the house when Thomas Fisher painted his watercolour of it in about 1820, [reference Z1330/4/1]. On Ann Sandys’ death in 1855 the house passed to Thomas’s nephew, Samuel, another surgeon from London. Samuel and his family are living in the house in at the time of the 1871 census. Samuel died in 1878 and his widow moved away.  

From 1902 the house was Eversholt Rectory in succession to the building now known as the Old Rectory and was certainly a good deal closer to the church [P42/2/4/1]. By this time the property belonged to the Duke of Bedford and the two buildings were exchanged, Linden House being transferred to the rector and churchwardens and the Old Rectory to the duke. 

The Rating and Valuation Act 1925 specified that every building and piece of land in the country was to be assessed to determine its rateable value. The valuer visiting the Rectory [DV1/C133/6] found that it stood in just over an acre of land. The valuer commented: “Was a farmhouse”. 

Accommodation comprised: three living rooms; a hall; a kitchen; a scullery; a pantry and WC; four bedrooms; a dressing room; a bathroom and a box room. Outside stood a coal and wood house and WC, a tool house, a loose box and store, a coachhouse and a range of outbuildings comprising: a fowl house; four cow standings; a loose box and three pigsties. There was also a small glasshouse. Linden House ceased to be the Rectory around 1980 when Eversholt was joined with Woburn and the Vicar of Woburn also became Rector of Eversholt.