SOUTHBROOM vicar the Reverend Chris Tebbutt and his family are leaving their seven- bedroom Victorian house and moving to a home on a new housing estate.

Mr Tebbutt, his wife, Sandra, and their three children are to move from the old vicarage in London Road to a new house on the Drews Pond development.

He believes the move will help to put him more in touch with the people he works with.

He said: "When you have got a family and a modest income it's the sort of house that is more realistic. Our new house will also make a statement to people outside the church.

"It is a house that is more representative of the normal standard.

"It gives the right message about where the Church is and saying that we are not living in stately homes."

The Tebbutts have lived in Southbroom Vicarage since moving to Devizes three and a half years ago when Mr Tebbutt became priest in charge at St James' Church.

Originally the Diocese of Salisbury wanted to sell off the vicarage but is now retaining it for church use after discussions with the Bishop of Ramsbury, the Right Reverend Peter Hullah.

The vicarage will become the home of the new Archdeacon of Wiltshire, who is due to take up the post in September.

The present Archdeacon of Wiltshire, the Venerable Barney Hopkinson, is retiring in July and interviews are due to be held soon to appoint his successor.

The Archdeacon currently lives in a church property in Urchfont. That property is also used as an area office for the Bishop of Ramsbury and the area office will also be moved to Southbroom Vicarage.

Moving to a new house will be no hardship for the Tebbutts as they have previously lived in a modern house.

Mr Tebbutt said: "We are quite happy about moving to the new house and we have been involved in the project. I am a new breed of vicar and before we moved to Devizes the last house we lived in was built in the 1980s and was on an estate.

Mr Tebbutt and his family are due to move to their new five bedroom home in June and he said they will leave the vicarage with fond memories.

Mr Tebbutt said: "We love the vicarage in so many ways and my children have loved having the space and the privacy it offers but with almost an acre of garden it's hard, with both Sandra and I working, to maintain.

"We also felt the vicarage was rather a grand house for a humble vicar and we wanted to be in a house that was more realistic, easier and cheaper to run and living in a normal community rather than being isolated, which we can be living in the vicarage."

The change will mean the parish office will move from the vicarage.

A working party of the Parochial Church Council has been set up to look at where to resite it and the choir vestry is one location under consideration.

The existing right of way through the vicarage to the parish centre, in Estcourt Street, is unaffected by the plans.

Southbroom Vicarage was built in its present location in 1846 and was later enlarged. A parsonage house had stood on The Green in 1647.