The Rectory
The original "Old" Rectory was built by the Rev Robert Wedgwood who was Rector of Dumbleton from 1850 until 1881. It was eventually demolished and a new house now occupies its site in Nutmeadow. A comprehensive history of the Rectory has been complied by Adrian and Cassandra Phillips who kindly provided this excellent summary shown in the document below and includes a postscript dated 2026. Also after document is a fascinating exchange of emails with Adrian regarding the first publication of this history, firstly in 2010 with John Parslow who was a child at the beginning of World War II and in 2020 Judy d'Albert a distant relative of Thomas Wood who lived in the northern half of the recotory in 1875 (see Occupancy dated 1875 also below).
The Old Rectory built by the Rev Robert Wedgwood
This aerial photograph shows the Village Hall bottom right, now Dairy Lane, and the new Rectory adjacent to a farm that was replaced by the St Peters development in the 1990s. (click on image to enlarge)
Lands related to Jesus College Oxford and to a transfer of 1853
Occupancy dated 1875
Occupancy dated 1892
Copy of an email to Adrian Phillips in 2020
Dear Adrian and Cassandra,
What a coup to find your online history of the Old Rectory!
I live in California but have done considerable research on my forebears. My dad's family were from Linton , Cambs and only a year ago did I trace the descendants of his much old brother John William DAY to the villages of north Essex and around Long Melford/ Sudbury, Suffolk. Will' s younger daughter is alive at 95 and is my first cousin though I am just 68! So the cousins my age are actually a generation after me. Pam was widowed in 2007 and after my 60 page volume of the DAY family circulated around this branch of the DAYS , I offered to make a copy for her. Pam knew almost nothing about her husband's family, but bit by bit, thanks to her daughter digging out a few old documents that came to her from her dad's older sister, I got some leads.
It seems Pam's father in law was Walter Wood b 1891 who was the son of William Wood who was the son of Thomas Wood ( a gamekeeper on the 1861, 1871 censuses) of the Old Rectory.
William was found in 1881 working as a footman in Kensington. On the 1851 census Thomas' wife is listed as Ann b. St John's, Middlesex with a son Richard aged 2. On later censuses though his wife is Catherine b Thornbury Herefordshire and Thomas' birthplace is also listed in Herefordshire - Norton. I suspect she may have been the second wife as she was 34 in 1861 and Ann was 26 in 1851.
You wrote:
Thomas Wood and wife lived in the northern part, plus lodger and six children in 1875. They too paid £5 rent a year – perhaps not too modest a cost as the “cottage smoked, (the) pump and drain (were) out of order (and the) walls and roof of the stable out of repair”. The stable mattered to Wood as he, and later his son John, were the village carters. The Woods are referred to in The Blacksmith's Daughter. Perhaps it was to stop the smoking that the estate installed the handsome Victorian grates on the first floor; and they must also have replaced the out of repair stables with new brick ones to the north-west of the house, adjoining an older stone outhouse.
As we have seen, the Woods family lived in the northern part. They are recalled by their granddaughter, Mrs. Bull, who was born Phoebe Grinnall at the Old Rectory in 1925. She was the daughter of Bert Grinnall and Dolly Grinnall (née Wood), who lived in this part of the Old Rectory with the Woods. Bert Grinnall was employed by Gloucestershire County Council and died at Little Cheltenham.
Is Mrs. Bull still alive as I am sure Pam's family would like to connect with her as she has memories of Dumbleton and may have further info on the Wood family. However I cannot quite make the connection with Grinnall on the censuses.
Could you scan me a photo of the Old Rectory to include in the book?
Many thanks.
Judy d'Albert
Copy of an email to Adrian Phillips in 2010
Dear Mr and Mrs Phillips,
I am so glad to see (from your website 'History') that the Old Rectory has electricity now. When I lived there it didn't!
The day war broke out, my father bundled his family (my mother, younger sister and I) into the car and drove west from London to a village he'd spotted on the map as 'Tumbledown' (was he dyslexic?). He deposited us at the door of the grandest-looking house in the village, asked the lady of the house to take us in, and returned to London to join the RAF. That was (more-or-less, but probably with some embellishment) how we came to live with 'Auntie' Lil Walker for the first four years of the war. My mother contracted TB in about 1942 and died aged 30 a short time after - no antibiotics in those days. (Her ashes are scattered on Dumbleton Hill.) Our grandmother, Annie Parslow, came from Essex to look after us. We were, I suppose, 'unofficial evacuees' in the parlance of the Dumbleton School log. (I spent just one term there before being whisked off to the junior section of Tewkesbury High School for Girls. Apparently the broad Gloucestershire accent I was developing was too much for my mother - and the school's sadistic headmaster rather 'had it in for' evacuees, even 5-year-olds.)
I was probably only 9 when we left the Old Rectory, so memories are not that clear. Most curiously, I have no recollection of neighbours on either side. (Bob Vart, the estate gamekeeper and groom, is the villager I remember best.)
- A pig was kept in the sty just outside the back (kitchen?) door; on slaughter day, us children were bundled away out of earshot. A side of pig hung "permanently" from a large hook next to the black kitchen grate.
- We kept chickens in the back garden - all whites except for one Rhode Island Red, my sister's favourite. Come Christmas dinner, chicken was served. I knew which one it was, my sister didn't until I told her as she was about to take her first mouthful, and thereafter refused to eat any. For me, Goodwill, and all that, was rather lacking that Christmas I seem to remember!
- The radio (no dry batteries or transistors then) was powered by a bank of acid batteries that needed recharging regularly (presumably at Evesham, or somewhere where there was electricity). To conserve power, it was switched on only for the news. Except once. In the summer of 1940 there was an hour's live cricket commentary from a packed Lord's. My father was playing, scored the only century of the match, and did so just after the wireless commentary began ("I slowed up in the 90s so you'd hear me get my ton").
- Again, not really relevant to Old Rectory history, but my father (a navigator in the RAF) sometimes flew over the village, usually at height, circling or waggling wings at a predetermined time. But once, on their way to the North African campaign, the Blenheim was brought so low that its wing tip just clipped a tall conifer in the front garden. The noise was terrific and Dad was clearly visible waving from the cockpit. Exciting stuff - except for Auntie Lil who (I was told much later) was so scared she "pee'd her pants".
I wish you well in your house!
Sincerely,
John Parslow