More tea, vicar?

Old rectories and vicarages hold an enduring appeal for country-house buyers

WHEN would-be buyers of country houses dream about their perfect property, what's often conjured up is a handsome, square-built Georgian-era old rectory or vicarage in a pretty village with a bit of land and views of the surrounding countryside. Quintessentially English, their appeal stems from a combination of beautiful architecture that boasts rooms with excellent proportions and an idyllic setting often next to a church in the heart of a community. They are also ideally sized for today's families-with four, good-sized reception rooms, five or six bedrooms and large, but manageable, gardens.

The setting is evocative of a scene from Jane Austen; indeed, in early June, The Old Rectory Society, formed in 2006 by the former Daily Telegraph editor Charles Moore, is hosting a Jane Austen day. The society is unequivocal about the position of such houses in our built heritage: according to its website, they are some of our country's greatest repositories of architectural, social, cultural and religious history'.

The visit begins at Chawton, the Hampshire village where Austen and her sister, Cassandra, lived for the last eight years of her life; the cottage is now a museum. It later takes in The Old Rectory in nearby Bentley, where a brother was curate. It doesn't, however, make reference to another local village, that of Steventon, where Austen was born. Lying a few miles south-west of Basingstoke, Austen's father was rector of the small, 12th-century church of St Nicholas in Steventon. It's thought that she wrote parts of Pride and Prejudice and Northanger Abbey when living in the rectory, which she described as the most tranquil period of her life.