The Vicarage
residents: Alan & (daughter) Amy Franks

Situated next to St. Stephens Anglican church, this four bedroom bungalow was built in 1974 on the grounds of the “Old Vicarage”. The last vicar to live there during the twentieth century was [part-time village vet] Robin Stokes who departed abruptly in 1995 after his ex-fiancée, Caroline Bone, [now Pemberton, soon to be Stirling] became Guy Pemberton’s wife. Caroline and Robin were previously engaged to be married weeks before she fell off her horse causing her best friend’s husband to crash into a tree and die. Caroline began to question God and her proposed marriage to the vicar.

In 1997, Dr Richard Locke, who converted it into a surgery, purchased The Vicarage. But, he didn’t last too long there either. He soon legged it out of Ambridge after the surgery’s neighbour, the saintly Shula Hebden [now Hebden-Lloyd], cast her angelic eyes upon his stethoscope. While he was living with solicitor Usha Gupta (former law partner of the late Mark Hebden), St. Shula muscled in to Dr. Locke’s arms for sensual comfort whilst also dating the new village vet, Alistair Lloyd. This ended in another Ambridge scandal that ran the doctor out of Blossom Hill Cottage’s warm embrace of Usha Gupta. Miraculously, the two ladies [Usha and Shula] have never seen nor spoken to each other since.

 The next doctor to take up surgery hours in The Vicarage also ran into a spot of scandalous behaviour after Bishop Cyril received an anonymous letter suggesting that Dr Tim Hathaway and the relatively new lady vicar Janet Fisher [now Hathaway] were more than just good friends. It is assumed that Derek Fletcher, notable penman of previous poisoned pen letters, did the deed because like Peggy Woolley, Derek Fletcher thought no woman had any business leading a congregation in England.

 But no greater evil deed was done when Siobhan, the doctor’s wife, announced she was having an affair and was pregnant (by the publicly unnamed) Brian Aldridge. This put an end to her marriage with the doctor - who at this given time DID find comfort in the vicar’s arms. The doctor and Janet left Ambridge in January 2003 vacating The Vicarage, St Stephen’s vicar post and thus ending two eras in Ambridge: gone was the first female vicar AND there was to be no more village doctor, single-handed practices being disapproved by the NHS. The pair married in May of 2003.

The Vicarage was restored to its original purpose and in 2003 the diocese rented the property for the current Vicar of Ambridge, Penny Hassett, Darrington and Edgely Alan Franks, after the former residence at Darrington was found to have major structural defects.