The Grade Two-listed Old Rectory dates from the early 1500s. The Rectors of Cheam were also Bishops of Chichester for many years and the post is still an important Church position. One Rector, Anthony Watson, wrote an eyewitness account of Nonsuch Palace in 1538. He was Elizabeth 1st’s almoner, a key court position, and was about five minutes’ ride from Nonsuch. It is tempting to imagine the Rectory, which would have formed a kind of B&B for prominent visitors to the Court, humming with gossip. Queen Elizabeth 1st said, ‘I love well of Nonsuch air’ and hunted in the park with her boyfriend, the Earl of Leicester. Later, Nonsuch was a centre of Catholic plotting to put Mary, Queen of Scots on the throne. The Lumley family lived here for years but the Palace decayed until Charles 2nd gave it to Barbara, Lady Castlemaine, a high-maintenance sexy piece, who had it pulled down and sold the stones to pay her gambling debts. A well-known Rector of Cheam was Lancelot Andrewes who wrote the famous meditation on the Magi: ‘A cold coming they had of it. Just the very worst time for a journey, and such a long journey.’ These words were taken by T.S. Eliot to open his famous poem, Journey of the Magi. The Old Rectory is said to have more than seven ghosts. They are very shy and the house has a warm and friendly atmosphere. Activity has included a Roman Legion seen marching through the Sitting Room, former rector Henry Peach seen resting his arm on the fireplace in the Dining Room, and a White Lady witnessed on the 1st Floor Landing. The negative energy of a past rector is said to inhabit the Green Room while 3 wounded Cavaliers have been seen in the Venetian Room. A woman in black has also been seen running across the road outside and is said to run through the front door and up the stairs before disappearing.