Knotting Rectories

 
The area around Knoting church in 1646 [R1/254]

The earliest reference to a Rectory at Knotting comes from a terrier of property of the Archdeaconry of Bedford dated 1706 [ABE II (Vol. 1 p. 221)]. It describes the house as being built of stone and brick with a tiled roof. Downstairs were: a kitchen with a stone floor; a hall with a stone floor; a parlour with a stone floor; two lean-tos with brick and earth floors being a buttery and a milk house. There were three chambers (bedrooms) upstairs along with two “small rooms which belong to the lean-tos”. There were also three garret rooms in the second floor attic, which were ceiled. A barn and a stable, of two bays each, both stood outside.

In 1793 a faculty was issued concerning the Rectory [ABF2 page 39]. The Rector stated that the parsonage house at Knotting was “in a very ruinous Condition without any Conveniences of Offices or Land excepting a small orchard and the Churchyard”. There was no parsonage at Souldrop as the old one had been destroyed “some years past” but there was a “new and very good Barn and Stable erected on the Glebe farm consisting of about Sixty five Acres of Land in the parish of Souldrop which farm was allotted to the Rector”. The Rector thus petitioned to pull down the parsonage at Knotting and re-use the materials in building a new Rectory at Souldrop. The petition was agreed and a faculty to proceed was issued.

We do not know for certain where the Rectory was. It is possible that it was just north of the church, as shown on an estate map of Knotting of 1646 [R1/254] where the building seems to be on the same curtilage as the church and churchyard.

Knotting church in 1646 [R1/254]