THE DIARY OF EDWARD BAGSHAW. 79 



1 8th centuries to reduce the matter to one general practice. At 

 Eyam the rector's tithes of lead were upwards of ^1,500 per 

 annum for several years early in the last century, but upon a 

 rector succeeding, who had bought the next presentation, they 

 suddenly dropped to some two or three hundred, and he tried, 

 but in vain, to back out of the bargain. One cannot help being 

 pleased at this trafficker in Spiritualities being thus paid out, but 

 he revenged himself on the parish by never residing. At Wirks- 

 worth the vicar is entitled to every tenth dish of ore, and within 

 recent times the income therefrom is said to have varied from 

 ;£i,ooo one year to ^100 the next. At Castleton, the tithe was 

 not estimated on terms nearly so favourable to the church. The 

 accustomed tithe was only every twentieth dish of ore, but only 

 every sixtieth really for the vicar, as the vicarage was endowed 

 with merely one third of the lead tithes, the remainder going to the 

 Bishop of Chester, or whoever farmed the rectory under him. 



During the first six months that Edward Bagshaw held this 

 vicarage, he received ^36 5s. 8d., as his share of the tithes on 

 lead, all proceeding from the Odin mine, the only one then at 

 work. Nine Dish of Ore made one load, and we find that the 

 average price for a load of lead ore was then about 25s. In 1725, 

 his total receipts from the same mine were ^37 10s. 2d. ; in 

 1726,^39 14s. 61I. ; but in 1729 it dropped to ;£ 12 15s. 2^d. 

 In 1 73 1, his receipts from the Odin mine had dropped to £8 

 19s. 8d.j but mining had commenced in other parts of the 

 parish, viz.. at Pindall Bottom, at Nab, at New Rake, and on the 

 land of one Ellis Dakyn. This ore varied in value ; that from 

 Pindall Bottom fetching 3s. 6d. per dish ; that at Nab, 3s. id. ; 

 and that at New Rake, only 2s. 8d. But the total receipts for 

 that year, notwithstanding these several new workings, only 

 reached ^14 12s. od. From 1733 to 1740 there was apparently 

 no lead mining whatever. In 1 741, "the tyth Oar taken up at 

 Durtloe, Pindall, and other mines in the Liberty of Castleton," 

 for the vicar, amounted to ^20 16s. 8d. There is a gap in the 

 journal until 1747, when the vicar received ^29 16s. 6d., and in 

 1750, ^35 7s. 6£d. These rapid fluctuations must have con- 



