By the Rev. J. Wilkinson. 53 



and founded upon a piece of waste ground belonging to the lords of 

 this village." 1629. "Also they present that the Church house is 

 situate and built on the waste of the lord of this manor, and, as 

 they have heard, was the house of the parishioners, and 60 years 

 and more since was at their use and disposal ; but during 30 years 

 and more the lords of this manor have held it and disposed of it." 

 The purposes for which the Church house was used having been 

 superseded by the more orderly, though less festive operation of 

 rating, we find Mr. Hickes making in the parish register this in- 

 structive entry. "In Novemb. Ano. Dni. 1732, a House called the 

 Church House, which had two chimnys, one at each end, was 

 pulled down, and the stones and timber used in the rebuilding the 

 House near the Parsonage House [Church farmhouse] . This House 

 reached from the Lower Stile (going to the brook) to the rails east- 

 ward, as may [be seen] from the stoone wall left for bounds of the 

 Church yard. This Church House was built by one Thomas Cock- 

 son, as appeared by a stoone in the wall of the said house next the 

 Church yard side, in which was engraven a Pedlar's Pack, and on 

 each side a cock. Some poor people liv'd in it in the memory of 

 man, who liv'd in the year sixteen hund. eighty and nine, and in 

 particular cas I have been inform'd by some that could remember 

 it, the father of John Oatridge, which John Oatridge had a leg cut 

 of, and mended shoes in a house belonging to Esqr. House, in the 

 lower end of the field near the brook, and was buried in May 1706, 

 which House was pulled down about year seventeen hundred and 

 eleven or twelve. About this Church House, after it was pulled 

 down, were noises in the night, like throwing the timbers about 

 one upon another and upon the stones that lay near, by Mrs. Hunt 

 and her two daughters that liv'd just by. Likewise in the Farm 

 House (lying by the Parson's House, in which then liv'd one 

 Robert Newman), while the Church House was pulling down and 

 after, they heard the treading of one going up and down stairs. 

 Also a noise of throwing the stones that were brought from the 

 said Church House into their Barton, from one heap to another." 

 There was an old Rectory house here, built probably about 1600. 

 Having fallen into a state of extensive decay, it was pulled down 



