Reference
QSH2/131-139
Title
Purchase of vicarage 1918: 4 St Paul's Square, Bedford
Date free text
1908-1918
Production date
From: 1558 To: 1949
Scope and Content
From time immemorial this was St Paul's vicarage. It is described in 1708 as "built of timber and mortar, covered with tiles, consisting of two small rooms of a floor, both together 22' long in front, one room floored with brick and the other of earth; on the back part two lean-tos or penthouses, one of them a very small parlour floored with board, the other a narrow hole by the stairs to hold fuel; above stairs two ceiled chambers and a closet; also over the parlour a window-place that serves for another small closet". Behind was a little garden 22' wide and running abut 120' down to the river. It seems to have been much the same in 1823, when the Archdeacon commented that it was too small. It must have been enlarged, perhaps entirely rebuilt, soon afterwards (possibly shortly before 1849 - Gent's Mag [class.coll] p.18), for Bradford Rudge draws it with three stories. It ceased to be a vicarage in 1907, and was bought by the Council for 1,920 in 1918.
Level of description
sub-file