Quite a sight: Carshalton’s Old Rectory, bottom right, with central London in the far distance
Sutton Council has put the Old Rectory in Carshalton into the hands of estate agents, as the local authority makes attempts to raise some extra cash while driving down costs incurred through building maintenance. Not that the council appears to have spent very much on that in recent years.
The Grade II*-listed Old Rectory has appeared on the Carter Jonas website this week, though without any sale price listed.
Thought to have been built between 1703 and 1705, during the reign of Queen Anne, the Old Rectory has four rooms on each of the ground, first and attic floors, and in its heyday provided very comfortable accommodation for the vicars of All Saints Church, which is just the other side of the ponds.
Most recently, the Old Rectory was used as offices for the local ecology centre, until that operation was scaled down because of council spending cuts. It remains, however, according to those in the know, a building “of huge historic interest in the Carshalton Village Conservation Area”.
Scope for development?: the Old Rectory’s floor plans, as shown in the sales brochure
According to the estate agents’ blurb: “The staircase is intact as is the layout of the original early 18th Century house.”
The building was under threat of being demolished in the 1940s, which was when the local council stepped in to preserve it and find other, civic uses. A council proposal in 2019 to sell it to a developer to turn the building into “luxury apartments” fell through.
Old Rectory, new future: the building is one of several heritage buildings being sold by Sutton Council. Photo: Carl Shilton
The inside of the building has not been open to the public since 2015, and estate agent photographs of the interiors show them to be in desperate need of some care and attention.
According to the estate agents, the building is currently occupied by “guardians”, as a means of avoiding squatters.
“Several buildings of historic character in Carshalton which are now in private hands have been left to fall into disrepair, such as North Lodge and the Fox and Hounds pub – with seemingly very little central legislation can do anything about,” according to the SecretCarshalton website.
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Very sad, the council seem to be ‘selling the family silver’.
I think it is poor judgement as this building is historic and listed.