Salthouse Churchwardens' Accounts 1742 - 1813

The nature of the work carried out in 1810-11 is not revealed in the accounts. As on previous occasions, entries merely state that, for example, Mr Jordan's bill was paid. Whatever work was done, however, involved a good deal of timber; entries total £72 8s. 11½d on this material, and there was also a payment of £6 18s. 6d on 'pavement'. A clue also occurs in a note about income for 1810-11. The cost of the repair work (over £537) was offset by:

Rec'd of Mr Baker for Old Bells.... .......................£68 10s. 0d
Rec'd for Old Iron.................................................. £1 3s. 4d
Rec'd for Old Planks...............................................£1 0s. 0d

Just as in the modern parish, payments to outside authorities were made frequently. There seem to have been regular expeditions to Walsingham close to Easter and Michaelmas each year for the purpose; for example in 1744:

April 1st Paid the Court fee at Walsingham...... 3s. 4d
The Parriter.......................................................... 6d
Horse and Self.................................................2 s. 6d

The Parriter (more usually Apparitor) was a minor legal figure who was the official messenger of the Archdeacon. It seems strange, in a modern age used to cheques and a banking system, that in order to make payments totalling 3s.10d the parish clerk had to be paid 2s. 6d to journey to Walsingham and back— unless, of course, he had other business there. Other payments to church authorities appear, for example in October 1801:

Bishop's fees and general........................... £2 0s. 0d

Doubtless such payments were as unpopular within the parish as their latter day equivalents are now.

As well as dealing with church matters, parish authorities had a number of civil responsibilities—for relief of the poor and for maintenance of the highway, amongst others. Expenditure of this kind does not appear in the Churchwardens' accounts but costs of another seemingly non-ecclesiastical kind do. In Tudor times parishes were given the responsibility of controlling 'vermin', and this seems to have been extended over the centuries to include all sorts of animals and birds. The entries in the accounts are illuminating; in 1743 there are:

March 23rd For 2 Jackdaws to Thos Pegg ............................. 2d
June 2nd Paid Wm High for 3 Jackdaws ................................ 3d
September 21st Paid Henry Stanforth Junior for a Fox .....1s. 0d

From the 1750s this activity increased markedly, with sparrows (at 3d per dozen killed birds) featuring prominently. Jackdaws were at 1d each and foxes 1s. 0d. By 1761 hedgehogs (at 4d each) were included in these bounty payments and in 1764 there is the curious entry for May 20th:

By 5 Hedgehogs and Sundry............................. 1s. 8d

 

 

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In May 1790 a similar sum was paid for mowing the Lane. Details of expenditure on the church building, however, are minimal. There are plenty of entries which clearly relate to repairs but omit the details, as in April 1754 for example:

Leond Haddon's Bill.......................£10. 17s. 10½d

While disappointing, this is by no means surprising since modern accounts are equally unrevealing. Some details in the 18th and 19th centuries are, however, very different. A typical entry (for September 1803) relating to work done in the church is:

Glazier's Bill.............................................. £1 4s. 0d
Allowance Beer for Glazier............................ 2s. 10d

The payment for beer is surprising to modern eyes but it must be remembered that in times past beer was a safer drink than water, and throughout these accounts there are entries for the cost of beer provided for work men. The cost of cleaning the church appears for several years. In 1760 an entry records a payment of 1s. 0d, but a more thorough clean, for example after building work, seems to attract a going rate of 10d per day. In June 1783 the entry reads:

Pd two Women 6 Days for cleaning ye Church.......... 10s. 0d
Pd John Cranfield for helping......................................7s. 0d
Pd for a horse fetching the water..................................1s. 6d

In 1797 there was another cleaning marathon following a whitewashing of the church, something which was done fairly often in the 18th and early 19th centuries but which has recently been sadly neglected. Several separate but related entries about this work in 1797 read:

June 12th To chaldron of lime ..................................10s. 0d
To carriage & getting into Church............................... 2s. 6d
July 9 Paid J Lynn for whitening Church ..............£1 11s. 6d
Paid J Lynn's Bill ...................................................... 15s. 9d
Paid Woman Spence 10 days at 10d per Day
for Cleaning Church ................................................... 8s. 4d
Oct 5th To a man and Horse getting Water
to Clean ye Church..................................................... 2s. 0d

By far the greatest expenditure incurred for the whole period covered by these accounts took place in 1810-11 when there was a major repair exercise and the 'church rate' rose to 18s. 0d in the pound. The entry reads:

A rate made by Willm Johnson and John Cranfield Churchwardens for a therrow [sic] repair of Salthouse Church done under a Faculty at Easter 1811 at 18s. 0d. on the pound.

This is an astonishing figure as compared with the usual 3d or 6d in the pound—although it was occasionally higher and had, for example, reached 2s. 6d in 1760. For the decade prior to 1810-11 the highest total expenditure by the Churchwardens in any one year was a little over £12 (and the lowest was just under £5). In 1810-11 it rose to £537 16s. 7d, forty or fifty times higher than usual. It was, of course, financed through an inescapable rate, but one can imagine the reaction of the ratepayers. This tremendous expenditure puts into context the repair programme currently (at the time of writing, in 2001) under way in the church, costing nearly £100,000 but only eight or nine times greater than the PCC's normal expenditure. How much more could be done if the Churchwardens still had recourse to a 'church rate'!