yi 



H Hitcval JTvanscnpt of tljr icavhcst 3(lfgtstfr 

 of I3alp Mi)i)CPt iDci1)gsl)tu. 



By the Rev. R. Jowett Burton, M.A., 

 Curate of Dale Abbey. 



|ANCTION for the transcript of the Register has been 

 very kindly given by the Rev. \V. Fox, Rector of 

 Stanton-by-Dale, and Chaplain ot Dale Abbey. 



This Register is of greater value than those of most 

 villages, owing to the excessive number of marriage entries it 

 contains. The yearly average of marriages for the past sixty 

 years is about three; but in 1685 there were thirty-eight, and in 

 1686 there were forty-six. The first suggestion of the numerous 

 entries is, that the people were not inhabitants of Dale ; and this 

 suggestion is made a certainty by such remarkable entries as 

 "One maried Decb ye 4 there names not knoivne.'' Why, we 

 may wonder, did strangers come to this remote village to be 

 married ? Was there some superstition as to a special blessing 

 on a marriage contracted in the quaint church beside the ruins of 

 an abbey, and under the same roof as an inn ? Or was it a local 

 Gretna Green ? Whatever it may have been. Burn in his 

 "History of Parish Registers" (p. 127) makes the following 

 remarkable statement : — " The marriages in the parish of Dale 

 Abbey were, until a few years previous to the Marriage Act {i.e., 

 Lord Hardwick's Act, 1754), solemnized by the clerk of the 

 parish, at one shilling each, there being no minister." If this be 



