This property is shown on William Cowell’s map of Little Saxham of 1638, but without any detail. It is more clearly shown on a map of 1798, where it is called ‘Stamerkin’. At the time it was probably an inn. The field to the west of Stamerkin was called Pound Field and the publican’s name of Sier is written on it together with the area of 15½ acres, which is approximately correct today. The name ‘Pound Field’ suggests that Stamerkin may have been the most convenient last port of call for drovers taking their cattle to Bury market from the west. William Sier paid a yearly rent of £40-15-0 to the Bristol Estate for the “public house and garth”. The drawing below shows the church and a very small house to the left of it. A pub sign can clearly be seen, but the scale of the house and sign would indicate that it was drawn in afterwards.
The Rectory (or ‘Parsonage’) at this time was not on the present site of ‘The Old Rectory’. It was on the opposite side of the road, where the back garden of Smallwood House is now.
Sier died on 29th May 1813 at the age of 64. It seems, however, that his wife Mary was a lady of considerable business acumen because she negotiated generous compensation from the Estate for giving up the lease at £100 per annum until 1823, plus £56 for fixtures. It is not known when the inn or public house became the Rectory, but it was possibly at the time of Sier’s death.
There now appears on the scene a man more responsible than anyone else for the present appearance of the Old Rectory, namely the Reverend William Brown Hall. He was appointed Land Steward to the Ickworth Estate in 1817 after coming down from Cambridge. He became Curate of Little Saxham in 1844 and subsequently Rector in 1852 when the incumbent, the Reverend Perryman Wakeham, died. Hall’s two great achievements were (a) the conveyance of the Rectory from the Bristol Estate to the Church, and (b) the alteration of the road pattern in the centre of the village (although few today would consider the latter achievement ‘great’).
A conveyance dated 31st December 1847 passed the property to the Rev. Hall “in trust to convey the same upon the next vacancy in the Rectory as a Parsonage House to the Church in consideration of five shillings well and truly paid”.
All was not well, however, because doubts were raised after the death of Perryman Wakeham. The 1847 conveyance may have been void because of the provisions of the Mortmain Act, raising the question whether Mr Hall could convey from himself in his private capacity to himself as the present incumbent. So the question had to be solved by a further conveyance to the property dated 23rd March 1855 “inasmuch as doubts are entertained as to the effect or operation of the said indenture of the 31st December 1847”.
So Mr Hall was safely and legally ensconced in his Rectory as incumbent. He considerably extended the house with a new entrance and staircase, fine new plasterwork in the main reception rooms, a new two storey bay at the SW corner to match the existing one, new stabling and an ice house.
But one serious problem remained and that was the much-increased volume of traffic passing his front door, following the opening of the Saxham & Risby railway station in 1852. Clearly this could be tolerated no longer. He therefore employed local surveyor John Croft (no connection to the Crofts of Little Saxham) to draw up a plan proposing diverting the road from Bury to Barrow from its then current position between the Rectory and the Church, to the other side of the Church. At the same time he proposed that the road from Chevington to Risby should pass the far side of the village green and to the east of the Church, well away from the Rectory. The map opposite was drawn after the road changes had been made – it’s easy to see the route of the old roads. The one to the west goes to Barrow and the one immediately to the left of the church heads north to Risby. See section on ‘Old Roads’.
The Surveyor’s affidavit stated that the new roads shown on his plan would be shorter and safer (which they certainly were not). Nevertheless, approval of two justices was obtained on 11th January 1856 and, after due public notice, final approval was granted at General Quarter Sessions on 9th June 1856.
It is a point of interest that the approved plan shows the new road passing to the north side of Church Cottages instead of curving sharply round the pit on the west side of Church Cottages, as now. But this length of road was never built.
So it can be assumed that Mr Hall lived in comfort (as Rectors of that time did) until his death in 1885. The 1871 census shows him living with his sister Isabella and two domestic servants, Elizabeth Frape and Elisabeth Jocelyn. He was unmarried.
Successive rectors then occupied the house until it was sold by the Church in 1960. Its condition then was poor. The drawing room floor was collapsing into the cellar; the dining room floor had death watch beetle; electricity was not connected and the lamp room (where the oil lamps were trimmed) was like the Black Hole of Calcutta.
The house was occupied by John Walton and his wife Mary from 1960, at which time it became known as ‘The Old Rectory’, until February 2000, when it was sold to Hugo and Sophie Smith.
(adapted from John Walton’s article of 1999)