A Bygone Era

A Bygone Era

Rates and Accounts

The Churchwardens’ Rates and Accounts Book for the 1800s reveals a bygone era. It records payments made to all manner of parishioners for the killing of vermin. In 1804, for example, among many other parishioners paid for killing pests, John Roe was “paid 3d for half a dozen old sparrows”, James Walice was “paid 1/6 for 6 Hedgehogs”, Peter Walice was “paid 4d for 1 polecat”, John Tubb was paid 2½d for 15 sparrows” and John Bulpot was “paid 6d for 3 stoats”.

The bell ringers were paid 5s. to ring the bells annually on Coronation Day and a further 5s. to ring them “at Gun Powder Treason” [i.e. November 5^th] every year. The last recorded payment for bell-ringing commemorating the Gunpowder Plot was in 1859, and the last recorded bell-ringing on Coronation Day was in 1861.