• In the 14th century the old part of the Rectory, just south west of Barnack church, was built. The Rector was Simon De Blatherwyck.
• From 1586 to 1590, Rector Rigus Fletcher, the chaplain to Mary Queen of Scots, occupied it.
• From 1770 Thomas Rennel was Rector of Barnack and Woodford. His son went on to be the Dean of Winchester and Master of the temple.
• In 1792 all the house was demolished and rebuilt, save the original northern wing of the Rectory, known as the ‘Button Cap’.
• In 1816, Rev Canon Marsham Angles was responsible for modernising the Rectory.
• In 1824, Dr. Herbert Marsh DD, the Bishop for the Fen district of Peterborough, offered Rev. Charles Kingsley his diocese – the Rectorship of Barnack. Charles Kingsley, his son, was five years old when they moved in.
• In 1832, Charles Kingsley and his family left the premises.
• In 1861, the new wing was demolished due to poor construction, and re-built for a second time as it stands today.
• In 1871, Rev Canon Marsham Angles paid the full cost for an infants’ school room. The extensive alterations were made under the direction of Edward Browning, architect of Stamford, at a cost of £685.
• In 1880, an extensive addition, which formed the main part of the building, was erected in the 17th century style.
• On the 4th of January 1946, the Rectory was derequisitioned.
• In 1963, the woodland parkland of the Rectory was developed into a housing estate.
• In 1966, November, a paper from the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, London’s Whitehall, advised that the alterations to the 19th century part of the houses were acceptable.
• By 1968 the Rectory was empty and an unsuccessful application was made to the County Council for consent to demolish the building for the erection of a number of houses.
• In June 1968, the Rural District Councillors petitioned Huntingdon and Peterborough County Councils that an order for preservation should be put on the building and it was granted.

Architecture:

The house today has a mixed heritage which includes being a modified mediaeval building with Victorian Gothic additions, as well as encompassing the old detached kitchen or brew house (located in the garden, west of the house). The mediaeval Rectory was originally a 16th - 17th Century house however it was extensively rebuilt during the 18th Century. The house itself is located south west of Barnack Church.

The 16th century cross wing is to the north and made of coursed stone rubble with a new tile roof complete with gabled ends. A 19th century gothic style oriel window is positioned at the end of the wall. The 16th century link wing has all but been demolished except for the two storey east front wall which is adorned by three bays with stone mullion windows and buttresses with set-offs.

The main house was built in 1880 in an early 16th style. The asymmetrical L-shaped two storeys, with moulded coping parapets, are separated by stringcourse and are made out of coursed stone with freestone dressings.

The east wall has been almost entirely rebuilt above the ground floor window sill. Its front has a projecting two storey porch off centre with oriels, battlements and a moulded two centred arch doorway below. The gable to the left has two and three light windows, whereas the windows to the right have gothic tracery.

There are no walls between the north, south and west wing consequently the imperfect alignment of the wing wall suggests it was a later addition.

The south front is elegant, with its canted bay to the right and pointed arch stair window in the centre. Even the gable to the left has a corbelled chimneystack.

In the rectory grounds, south east of the house, ancient out buildings can be found which neighbour a destroyed mediaeval stone barn. Interestingly there is also part of an ancient cross in the garden, brought over from the churchyard.

To the north of Kingsley House lies a 17th or 18th Century garden boundary wall, fronting 'Main Street'. It is a coursed stone rubble wall approximately 3.1m (10ft) high. However the east end had been reduced in the height to about 1m (3ft 6in) high.

Social history:

• The Kingsley family were born in Kingsley House, that is to say; Charles Kingsley, George Henry (1826), Charlotte (1828) and finally Henry in 1830. They were taught Latin, mathematics, botany, natural history and drawing by their father.
• Barnack Rectory was reputed to have a ghost named after the northern wing ‘Button Cap’. Eerily Charles, as a young child, was moved to the haunted room when suffering from brain fever. He became a victim of dreams and nightmares and included accounts of them in his novels. The ghost was believed to be a former Rector of Barnack who wore a flowered dressing gown and a cap with a button on it. During his life he was said to have defrauded a widow and orphan and his restless ghost was thought to be searching for evidence of the incriminating deed. Although as a child he may have believed the ghost story, as an adult he denied it.
• Charles Kingsley composed poems and sermons from the age of four and even recreated his nursery to represent a church and its congregation. His poems betrayed a childish preoccupation with death, reminiscent of early Victorian religious homilies (sermons).
• On 17th October 1967, a revealing meeting was held at the County Planning Department. The minutes reveal that the owners claimed that carrying out the preservation work on the two buildings and then selling them would leave them out of pocket by approximately £66. As an alternative solution they had suggested that they be allowed to demolish the building and erect three detached houses upon the land. Ultimately it was resolved that a grant of £50 was made to the applicant under the provisions of the Local authorities (Historic Buildings) Act, 1962.