Dream property: Old Vicarage, Etherley, for sale for £1.495m

Not only did Michael succeed, but now, after more than 28 years of restoring and enlarging the Old Vicarage in High Etherley, he has put it on the market for £1.495m.

Now his rags-to-riches story is incorporated within the stones of the Grade II six-bedroom home which also tell the story of his home village.

Because Etherley was at the start of the Stockton & Darlington Railway. When the railway opened in 1825, there was just a scattering of houses and small coal pits in the district, but cheap transportation suddenly made the Durham coal viable and the industry exploded.

The Stobart family, who lived in Etherley House, owned the mines, and apparently ensured that only mine officials lived in the village around them – no mining terraces for Etherley.

READ MORE: MEET THE NURSES WHO RAN THE ETHERLEY FIRST WORLD WAR HOSPITAL

AND: PICTURES OF WW1 SOLDIERS RECUPERATING AT ETHERLEY HOSPITAL

Etherley church, built 1832To cater for the growing population, the Church of England built St Cuthbert’s Church in 1832, for 200 people at a cost of £700. The church’s National School Society built classrooms for 187 pupils – the school still has “erected 1833” in the stonework over the door – and then it needed somewhere for its first vicar to live.

Etherley school, with "erected 1833" over the door. Picture: Google StreetViewSo it acquired Etherley’s old manor house, and employed the architect who had designed the church, William Ramshaw of Bishop Auckland, to create a new vicarage on top of it.

Ramshaw has his own rags-to-riches story to tell. Born in Merrington in 1777, he started out as a cabinet-maker but grew to be a surveyor, architect and builder as well, with his own engineering works near Bishop Auckland Market Place.

The grammar school was also based in the Market Place and in 1826 it welcomed a new pupil from Newcastle: William Armstrong. Aged 16, he already had a brilliantly practical mind, and he began dropping in at Ramshaw’s works to see things in operation and to chat to the man in charge. The two struck up an unlikely friendship and, in 1835, young Armstrong married Ramshaw’s daughter, Margaret.

Margaret Armstrong, of Bishop Auckland, the daughter of builder William RamshawLord Armstrong, as he became, grew into one of the greatest engineers of the Victorian era. His Elswick Works on Tyneside employed 25,000 people making hydraulic cranes, ships and armaments. His most enduring project, though, is Cragside in Northumbria, which was a fishing lodge set amid heathland when he acquired it, but he turned it into a dramatic mansion with a hydraulic lift, a water-powered spit and, of course, electricity generated through his water turbines.

Cragside, where the gardens were designed with Margaret's helpThe grounds at Cragside, now a National Trust property, are as famous as the house because they are set among the steep sides of a tree-lined gorge. Margaret, a keen gardener, is credited with much of their layout.

The Old Vicarage, Etherley. Picture: Strutt & ParkerAt Etherley in 1834, in designing the new vicarage on top of the old manor house, her father retained at least two cellars of the medieval property, as the vicar’s father-in-law would discover to his cost in 1854: one evening after his meal, he opened the wrong door and tumbled down the stairs to his death.

Ramshaw’s grand vicarage cost £900 – £200 more than the nearby church – which the first vicar, the Reverend George Watson, had to raise. He came up with a novel idea of publishing a book of his sermons. They must have been good because, in 1843, Queen Victoria bought 33 copies.

With royal support, Watson was able to pay off all the vicarage’s debts.

Etherley Institute. Picture: Google StreetViewHe remained as Etherley’s vicar until 1865, when he died suddenly while giving a poetry reading in the Literary Institute. The lines he had written for the occasion told of his love for the village and how, over the course of his 33 year connection to it, many friendly faces had passed away:

How many voices, now to memory dear,
Whose words and kindly greetings charmed our ear,
Whose owners trod with us the path we tread,
Are hushed and still among the silent dead,
And us perchance alone, must battle on,
And do our best ere life's short span is gone,
Old Etherley, my home, I love thee well,
On all thy cherished scenes I love to dwell,
Scenes dear to me throughout life's long career,
And, through gone to memory, ever near.

As he read, he suffered a heart attack and collapsed, causing several ladies to faint. He could not be saved.

The Reverend Watson’s vicarage remained the home of the vicar throughout the 20th Century, even if a miner’s son, Michael Maddison, who grew up on the Red House Estate, cast envious, ambitious eyes at it in the 1950s.

“I would climb the dry-stone wall and look over the top,” he says. “I would see all this land and the house and wish it belonged to me.”

Michael’s father, George, worked at West Auckland Colliery until it closed in 1968 and then took over a milk round. He would encourage his son’s dreams by telling him: “Who’s to say? Anything is possible. You decide, and never limit your imagination.”

At first, Michael’s imagination limited him to being a chartered accountant in Bishop Auckland with Chipchase Nelson until, in 1986, his car skidded on black ice near Raby Castle and smashed into trees. His terrible injuries – he had to have a screw drilled into the back of his head – hospitalised him for four months, but he emerged motivated to go into business development, where he discovered he had a great skill for maximising established businesses and rescuing failing ones.

This grew to an empire including nursing homes, financial services, consultancies and even, for a while, Lazenby’s sausages.

Michael Maddison outside The Old Vicarage in 2013And, in 1996, a “for sale” board went up outside the vicarage. Within a fortnight, he had bought it, even though he discovered that it was in a state of disrepair with the chimneys tumbling down and no heating upstairs.

“It was totally run down,” he says. “The place was a wilderness. There was hardly a plant in the garden.”

Numerous people helped with the transformation, but he singles out two. Firstly, his sister Judith Moran, herself a successful and award-winning businesswoman with her Learning Curve company which she built up from nothing in 11 years so that it had a turnover of £38m and 580 full time and part time employees.

And secondly, “my multi-talented business partner and solutions consultant”, Wayne Davison.

“We share the same values and philosophy in life,” says Michael.

The Old Vicarage, Etherley. Picture: Strutt & ParkerTogether, over 28 years, they have restored The Old Vicarage into what the estate agent describes as “a magnificent, detached period house”.

In Michael’s childhood, the vicar kept the property closed from the public so they could only see it over the walls, but he has purposely set out to open it up, so that gardens have taken part in charity schemes, and bonfire nights are celebrated in them.

“Our family are so proud of our roots, coming from Etherley, our home village, so it is nice to leave a lasting contribution to it,” he says.

“No expense has been spared because you can’t put a price on achieving your dreams. The whole project has been a labour of love and a childhood dream come true.

“Now, though, is time for a new era. We’re passing on the baton – and the property – to the next generation, and it will start a new chapter, just as we are going to.”

Inside The Old Vicarage

• The Old Vicarage is on the market with a guide price of £1.495m. For more information, contact the Harrogate office of Strutt & Parker on 01423-594852.
• The Red House estate, of course, is on the site of Red House, another Stobart property. As Memories 693 told, the Red House became a Voluntary Aid Detachment hospital during the First World War run by Jessica Stobart. We are pleased to say that since the article appeared, Jessica’s VAD medal has been reconnected with her family.
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