The church
Bishops and palaces
Bernard Croft
By moving into Bishopthorpe, the new Archbishop of York becomes one of only a very few diocesan,bishops left with Palace addresses in England now In addition to the Archbishop of Canterbury (who has two palaces — Lambeth and the Old Palace, Canterbury), there are the bishops of Bath and Wells, Chichester, Exeter, Hereford, Peterborough, and Gloucester. But the Bishop of Gloucester's address nowadays is given as 'Palace House' which would seem to indicate that at Gloucester there is now the same arrangement as at Bishopthorpe; and this may be so also at some of the other episcopal palaces.
Archbishop Blanch will live in a fairly modest suite of rooms, a kind of flat, in one wing of Bishopthorpe Palace; as did Archbishop Coggan, and Archbishop Ramsey. It was the bachelor Archbishop Garbett who last occupied some of the main rooms of Bishopthorpe, I believe.
We still have two diocesan bishops with Castle addresses — those of the Bishop of Durham (Auckland Castle) and the Bishop of Carlisle (Rose Castle, Dalston). And just how palatial or castle-like is 'Wolvesey', the official residence of the Bishops of Winchester, I cannot say. But as the home of one of the top five bishops it is no doubt a good deal more so than the new houses provided of recent years for many of our English diocesans. The new Bishop of Lincoln will no doubt be glad that his home is not now the Old Palace on the other side of the minster from the new Bishop's House. And while the new Bishop of London has been complaining that his new house, 19 Cowley Street, Westminster, is a bit cramped, he would not, I imagine, like to go back to Fulham Palace.
The new Bishop of Sodor and Man has set up home in an ordinary house in Ramsey, Isle of Man, refusing to take up residence in the GOO-year-old palace, Bishop's Court. But Manx MPs are not at all pleased about this and think their bishop should follow the old tradition, even if the island's government has to spend a good deal of money on modernising the palace for him.
Glancing through the present addresses of our bishops, '38 Tooting Bec Gardens' (for his lordship of Southwark) has a nice plebeian sound; and I was sorry in a way when the Bishop of Oxford moved back to Cuddesdon (though not to the old style palace there) from such an address as '12 Rawlinson Road'. ("Rents were lower in Rawlinson Road," wrote Sir John Betjeman in his poem, 'Oxford: Sudden illness at a bus-stop.') I imagine that all the bishops now living in new houses are as pleased with them as are so many of us of the inferior clergy with our new type rectories and vicarages; but I cannot help wondering whether the new Archbishop of York will perhaps be the last to live even in part Of Bishopthorpe. After all, His Grace is first and foremost the diocesan bishop of York, a very extensive diocese, stretching from the Humber to the Tees. And Bishopthorpe, a couple of Miles out of York, is right on the edge of it.
It was no doubt central enough when the diocese was even more extensive, south and westwards But it is out on a limb these days, as well as being so vast in size. (I was reminded of this when a fellow member of the York Diocesan Synod from Teesside mentioned to Me that there were three other cathedral cities nearer to them at home than York — Durham, Newcastle, and Ripon.) The Palace of Bishopthorpe could still be Called fairly central if the Archbishop of the Northern Province spent much of his time travelling around the whole Northern Province the dioceses of Durham, Blackburn, Carlisle, k:bester, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, 1`1P00, Sheffield, Sodor and Man, Southwell, and Wakefield; as well as York. Rut he doesn't. And perhaps the time has ,corne, now that the Church of England must Tok carefully at its finances and properties, for "_!le powers-that-be to consider whether Biaopthorpe should be kept any longer as the Official residence of the Archbishops of York — wolch it has been for seven centuries.
Archbishop Blanch would seem to be the
11.d of man to give a lead towards a change being made. Nobody wants the old palace to Pass out of the Church's hands. But, surely, a e ,°untrY house more central in the diocese around Pickering, Malton or Helmsley), and mk Wulc-h smaller than Bishopthorpe, would be 4...corned by present-day diocesans of York. And there must be many church organisations _ho could make better use of Bishopthorpe. 11_,OW about turning it into flats for retired celrgymen? Many will agree that the days of Palaces for our chief shepherds have now gone. The Rev Bernard Croft is a Yorkshire vicar
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