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Description: | Copy photograph of a postcard (S C 483).
The property was built about 1750 as an estate farm, becoming known as Ampfield Cottage. It was conveyed to the church as a vicarage in 1841 by Sir William Heathcote, 5th Baronet, when Ampfield became a separate parish.
The house is of two storeys, red brick with a vitreous brick string course at first floor level. The doorcase is surrounded by Doric pilasters, with a plain arched fanlight. The house was extended in 1841 (perhaps the projecting gabled extension on the left of the building) and has subsequently been enlarged several times to accommodate the families of succeeding vicars.
The right-hand section, on the eastern side of the house, was built for the Reverend Vere Awdry in about 1900 as a study, with bedroom accommodation above. The modern driveway, leading straight onto the main road, was created in the 1920s: previously the carriageway had entered from a side lane.
The early occupants had often tended to denigrate the house as being too small. To one visitor, Miss C A E Moberly, daughter of the headmaster of Winchester College, it was "too remote for anyone not keeping a horse and carriage, but too small for anyone of note". Perceptions had changed by the mid-twentieth century. The house was becoming too unwieldy and expensive for the church to maintain. It was sold at auction in October 1968, as accommodation "ideally suited for family occupation", and is now in private ownership.
Amongst the occupants were the Reverend John Frewen Moor, author of books on the village and on John Keble, and the Reverend Vere Awdry. The latter is made famous by his son, Wilbert Vere Awdry, creator of Thomas the Tank Engine. Born in 1911, he lived at the vicarage until he was seven years old. His love of trains was probably imbued by his father, who had a layout of 140 yards of track, including tunnel and station, in the gardens.
References:
1. Hallett, Elizabeth and Anita Wood. 2000. Ampfield through the ages, p. 99-102, 253-259.
2. Hallett, Elizabeth. 1990. The story of Ampfield vicarage. Eastleigh and District Local History Society extended paper No 8. | Format: | image/jpeg | License: | http://www.sopse.org.uk/ixbin/hixclient.exe?a=query&p=gateway&f=generic_sitetext%2ehtm&_IXFIRST_=1&_IXMAXHITS_=1&cms_con_core_subtype%3acms_con_text_what=copyright&%3acms_sys_group=%22sopse%22 | Rights holder: | D Len Peach | Subjects: | building vicarage | Temporal: | start=1945-01-01; end=1965-12-31; | Source: | Sense of place SE | Creator: | Copied by: Peach, Len; May 1995 | Identifier: | http://www.sopse.org.uk/ixbin/hixclient.... | Language: | en-GB | Format: | image/jpeg | Go to resource |
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