Old Vicarage, St Andrew’s Road, Headington
The above postcard shows St Andrew’s House on the corner of St Andrew’s Road and Osler Road in about 1905. This was the vicarage of St Andrew’s Church from 1881 to 1977.
The picture below (left) shows the same scene at the end of 2001. It is no longer possible to photograph the house from the same angle as the old postcard in summer (right), because of the tree that has been planted on the triangle of land in front of it!
Most of the early vicars of St Andrew’s were Fellows of Oxford colleges, and did not need a house in Headington, because they had curates to do most of the work for them. And in the earlier part of the nineteenth century as Thomas Henry Whorwood (Vicar from 1804 to 1835) was also Lord of the Manor of Headington from 1806 and thus owned the Manor House, a stone’s throw away from the church.
The next incumbent, Joseph Charles Pring (Vicar 1835–1876), lived with his family at 6 London Place in St Clement’s, at a convenient distant between New College, where he was on the foundation, and Headington. He was the son of the organist and composer Joseph Pring (1773–1842).
Alleyn Ward Pearson (Vicar 1876–1879) lived at the Hermitage at 69 Old High Street.
By the spring of 1881, however, the church must have already begun negotiations for the purchase of the vicarage, as it is already listed in the census that year as "St Andrew’s House: Vicarage". But despite this it is shown as still let out, to widowed annuitant Mrs Susanna Robinson (who sub-let part of the house to George Cousins and his family); while Edmund Francis Guise Tyndale (Vicar from 1879 to 1889) is shown as living on his own in New High Street with a widowed housekeeper. He was not able to move into the Vicarage until Christmas that year, as this extract from the Headington Parish Magazine for October 1881 shows:
Parishioners will be glad to hear that the negotiations with Mr R. Godfrey for the purchase of S. Andrew’s House as a Vicarage for this Parish have been completed during the past month, and that at last the reproach of having no place of residence for its Clergyman has been taken away from the Parish. The late Bishop of Oxford (Wilberforce) so long ago as 1847, felt so strongly the necessity of procuring a house for the Vicar here, that soon after coming to the Diocese, he put it down as one of the objects to be attained by him. Those who have read his Life, and the account of its earnest toil for the benefit of the Parishes in his Diocese, must have regretted that, whilst successful in obtaining so many objects which he felt to be necessary for those committed to his care, he never lived to see the accomplishment of this one. They must rejoice that at last his wish is fulfilled.
Thanks are due to the ladies who worked so zealously for the bazaar last June year, and especially to Mrs Desborough who so successfully organized it; and to Mr G. H. Morrell, Miss Nichol, and Mrs Stone, and others who generously subscribed; and also to the Governors of Queen Anne’s Bounty, who met local generosity and efforts by grants amounting in all to £400.
The Vicar hopes to begin his residence at the Vicarage at Christmas.
The 1891 census shows John Holford-Scott (later known as Scott-Tucker, Vicar 1889–1899) living in the vicarage with his wife, four children, and three servants. The later vicars who lived in the house were:
- Robert Walter Townson (1899–1916)
- Alexander Nenon Armstrong (1916–1924)
- Henry Edward Bird (1924–1946)
- George Edmund Day (1946–1956)
- Derek Ian Tennant Eastman (1956–1964)
- Christopher Robin Paul Anstey (1964–1971)
- Robert Martin Colquhoun Jeffery (1971–1977)
In 1977 St Andrew’s House was sold by the church, and one of the rebuilt cottages just across the road became the new vicarage.
Iin an article about Old Headington in the Oxford Mail of 14 January 1955, S.P.B. Mais said of the building: "Curiously enoug, the one house in Church Street which does not seem quite so old as the others is the L-shaped tall vicarage which, compared with the neighbouring houses, is a skyscraper."
Picture of the Revd Tyndale and family
Taken in 1888 by Henry Taunt
This picture on the English Heritage website shows the Revd Francis Guise Tyndale (vicar 1879 to 1889) with his wife Marcia Louisa and his four daughters, baby son, and nursemaid outside the garden door of this old vicarage. His five children were all born in this house: Mary Elfrida (3 February 1882), Dorothy Frances (10 June 1883), Oriane Sophy (2 July 1884), Marcia Edersheim (13 August 1886), and Henry Edmund Guise (10 December 1887)