A VILLAGE churchwarden has enlisted the help of a national organisation to try to save a vicarage.

John Coverdale is angry that the Diocese of York is trying to sell Ingleby Greenhow vicarage, built in the 1800s. It was sold to the parish for three shillings by the De L'Isle family on the understanding it would remain with the church.

Under a 1961 settlement, money was given to the diocese on the understanding that the parish continued to be separate.

The parochial church council, and the De L'Isle family, oppose the sale.

The current vicar, the Rev Doctor Anne Heading, does not work from the premises and until recently a family lived there.

Mr Coverdale said: "We anticipated what would happen when the previous vicar left. This parish was reorganised with three others into what was called a united benefice.

"The Church of England is considered to be an irrelevance that no longer gives guidance and leadership to the population. Everybody can see it fracturing into many parts.

"We would like to have a house that we could give to the parish priest as a house of duty and we feel that we have a strong moral case."

Now Save Our Parsonages, a national membership organisation, is backing Mr Coverdale's bid to stop the sale of the vicarage.

Spokesman, Anthony Jennings, said: "Up and down the country it is the same thing - the diocese wants to sell off these parsonages and the wardens don't want them to."

The PCC will now appeal to the Board of Church Commissioners.

Mr Jennings said: "The Church commissioners adjudicate but in 90pc of cases they come out in favour of the diocese."