Croft-on-Tees, said the editorial of the D&S Times 150 years ago, is a “pretty village of neat trim-built cottages” set amid beautiful countryside which featured “gentle undulations of hill and vale” and that during the summer it was crowded with “fashionable valetudinarians who come to drink and lounge in the waters”.

But, said the editorial coming at last to its point, the village’s old church was “mean, shabby, neglected, in the last stage of ruin and decay”.

In fact, it was so bad that the vicar, after battling with his parishioners for five years, and being forced to hold services in the school just to stay dry, had resigned in dismay.

The church walls, said the D&S, could be blown down at any moment and the windows blown out. “Inside, unspeakable meanness combined with unspeakable human pride and selfishness is apparent everywhere,” it said.

Darlington and Stockton Times: Croft church where the rector sensationally resigned 150 years ago

The Reverend FH Law had taken over as rector of Croft in 1868 from the Venerable Charles Dodgson – the father of Lewis Carroll – when the church was already in an appalling state. Mr Law had offered £1,000 to start the rebuilding and, even though he had the backing of his bishop and the two principal landowners – William Wilson-Todd of Halnaby Hall and William Chaytor of Croft Hall – he was out-voted three-to-one by the villagers who refused to repair the church.

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They, it was alleged, were controlled by the Milbanke family, who had owned Halnaby Hall for 200 years until selling to the Wilson-Todds and retreating to Chichester. The Milbankes had two centuries of ancestors buried in the north aisle which was dominated by one of the largest raised pews in any church in the country.

“This monument of the pomp and vanity,” thundered the D&S Times, “looks down on the shabbiest of pulpits, and on a general scene of squalor and dilapidation… in this most forlorn House of Prayer”.

The Milbankes raised pew in Croft church

The Milbankes' raised pew in Croft church

The Milbankes, who probably didn’t have spare money to fritter away on a church that they no longer visited, refused to allow any repairs for fear that their family graves should be desecrated in the progress. They even instructed barristers to thwart Mr Law’s plans and now the rector, “wearied and disheartened”, had handed in his resignation.

“During some wintry gale, the old tottering walls will come down with a rush and though ancestral tombs may still flourish amid the wreckage,” concluded the D&S before referring to the Milbanke’s huge pew, “the family four-poster will be buried in the ruins with no chance of resurrection.

“Should the calamity come, it will not be without its compensation.”

The rector’s resignation brought the villagers to their senses and they soon allowed their forlorn House of Prayer to be restored so that it still stands with the Milbankes’ raised pew still looking down on them.