Old Vicarage, Grantchester

52.17661°N 0.09715°E / 52.17661; 0.09715

Old Vicarage, Grantchester

The Old Vicarage in the Cambridgeshire village of Grantchester is a house associated with the poet Rupert Brooke, who lived nearby and in 1912 referenced it in an eponymous poem – The Old Vicarage, Grantchester.[1]

The Old Vicarage was built in around 1685 on the site of an earlier building, and passed from church ownership into private hands in 1820. It was bought in 1850 by Samuel Page Widnall (1825–1894),[2] who extended it and established a printing business, the Widnall Press.[3]

In 1910 it was owned by Henry and Florence Neeve, from whom Rupert Brooke rented a room, and later a large part of the house. Brooke's mother bought the house in 1916 and gave it to his friend, the economist Dudley Ward.[2] In December 1979, it was bought by the novelist and former politician Jeffrey Archer and his wife, scientist Mary Archer.[4] It has been listed Grade II on the National Heritage List for England since August 1962.[5]

The Guardian crossword setter John Galbraith Graham (Araucaria) set a clue often described as epitomising his clue-making: Poetical scene with surprisingly chaste Lord Archer vegetating (3, 3, 8, 12), the last four words forming the anagram THE OLD VICARAGE GRANTCHESTER.[6]