The Vicarage

The House

The original house known as the Vicarage was situated in on the corner of Northgate and Sunderland Street (facing the Butter Cross), with St Leonard’s to the left and The Hollies to the right. Built in the 1785, it is a Grade ll listed Georgian house of 3 storeys with a lower rear wing; to the rear were farm buildings and a barn, which were converted into the Infants School in the 1840s.  

In 1921 the adjacent house, The Hollies, was purchased from the Foljambe Trust for the sum of £1,800 and, after alterations, became the ‘new’ (and present) Vicarage. During World War Two, the ‘old’ Vicarage was used as Army barracks; in1948 it became a private hotel - Darfield House, until its conversion into flats later in the 20th century.

The Occupants

The first vicar to live in the ‘old’ Vicarage was the Rev Thomas Francis Twigg, his successor was the Rev. Edward Brooksbank, whose son Benjamin was later to reside at Sand Rock House*. Edward Brooksbank was the incumbent at St Mary’s from the 1821 until 1856, when he resigned on succeeding to the Healaugh estate, near Tadcaster, on the death of his eldest brother; he also farmed some of the church lands and served as a Justice of the Peace for the West Riding of Yorkshire.  

The next occupant was the Rev. Charles Bury, who was born in Doncaster; he had been Curate at St Anne’s Church in Lancaster before his appointment at Tickhill. In 1863, he left to become the vicar of St John the Evangelist’s Church at Worksop, and for the next five years, his namesake, the Rev James Bury was resident.  He was followed for a short period by the Rev. Townley Gardner; however, ten years after moving to Worksop, and by then aged 77, Charles Bury returned to Tickhill to resume his position as Vicar until his retirement at the age of 90 in 1894.  

The penultimate incumbent of the 19th century was the Rev. John William Goodall, whose previous post had been Vicar of Dalton; his successor was the Rev. Augustus Dixon Alderson. Born in Scarborough and educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, he was ordained in1893 and following curacies at Lowestoft and St Leonard’s-on-Sea; he was installed at Tickhill in 1899. In 1911 he moved to Tockwith, near York but was to return to the neighbouring parish of Loversall in 1929.

Another Cambridge graduate became the next Vicar of Tickhill: Horatio Edwin Booty, formerly Vicar of Thornaby on Tees, was the first to live in the newly purchased Vicarage; a bachelor, he was to remain in Tickhill until his retirement in 1934. The last vicar of the inter-war years was the Rev. Job Maxwell Shaw.