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Although the Rectory is to be found today some distance from the church in St John's Lane, it's ancient site was in Church Road where the pair of Victorian Parsonage Cottages are to be found today.  

As the Church has been here since the 11th century, it is quite possible that there has been a Rectory here too as long.  In the absence of other evidence, it would seem reasonable to assume that the Rectory had always been on the Parsonage Cottage site.

Our first reference to it was in 1433 on the occasion of the Archdeacon's visitation where he ordered repairs to the Rectory by the following Easter, or be fined 13s 4d (67p).  Dilapidation of the Rectory was to become a recurring feature of its history as we shall see.  The Rector did not turn up for the visitation, so presumably they did not live in Hartley - possibly the reason why the rectory was in poor repair.  

In 1524 and 1525 when John Bele the rector was admonished by the bishop because the Rectory required "great repairs".  In spite of this nothing appears to have been done, because when the Archdeacon visited in 1532 he found "all the buildings of the Rectory are ruinous" and he ordered sequestration of the rector's income to pay for repairs.  Some repairs had been undertaken by his next visit in 1534, but he was unhappy that they had not been done according to instructions.  Again he did not live there, and this appears to be a feature of the Rectors of Hartley before the 19th century.

In 1670 the Archdeacon said the parsonage house was in need of repair.  And again in 1719 the churchwardens said "we present the parsonage house very much ruinated and out of repair".  This time repairs were done, because in the Archdeacon's visitation of 1732 the only repairs required were the plastering of front of the house and the underpinning of the corner of the barn.

By the turn of the 19th century it had become farm labourer's cottages.  From the parish rate books we learn that in 1798 Thomas Durling lived here, followed by William Durling and Reuben Martin in 1807.  Unfortunately for historians, but fortunately for the rector, the parish agreed to exempt the property from rates in 1810, so it disappears from the rate book.  The present building clearly dates to the 19th century but there is no written evidence of when it was built.

At the time of the 1851 census one of the tenants was farm labourer John and his wife Harriet.  Also living here was their 4 year old daughter Annie.  Later she moved to Yorkshire, but in 1927, aged 80, she wrote to Rev Bancks with her memories of living there, extracts of which he published in the Parish Magazine.  The life she describes is very different, having to walk to Fawkham to post a letter, or a Sunday visit to see how building of the railway line was coming along.

The land of the Rectory also included a parcel of about 5 acres at Hoselands Hill.  This Rev Edward Allen exchanged in 1851 with for the site of the Old Rectory and Rectory Meadow.