230 Bradford-upon-Avon. [Parish Church. 
gers’ who wished to settle in Bradford from the authorities of the 
Parish to which they belonged,—bonds of indemnity given by 
employers to save the inhabitants harmless in the event of any of 
the non-parochial artizans becoming chargeable to Bradford. The 
earliest Vestry Book in the Parish Chest dates only from 1725, and 
a volume containing the proceedings for some years previously to 
1836 is missing. I am in possession of some extracts made from 
this Vestry Book not many years ago, so that I am in hopes it may 
yet be found and restored to the Parish Chest. 
The Vestry Book (1725) to which I have alluded as the oldest 
known for a certainty to be in existence, has the following inscrip- 
tion on the first page, which, it is possible, may imply, that previous 
Churchwardens had not guarded, or handed down the Parish Re- 
cords, with sufficient care. 
‘‘Edward Burkham and Edward Young, Churchwardens of Bradford in the 
County of Wiltes. A°. Dom, 1725, 
‘‘May this Book be transmitted with care, successively, from one Church- 
warden to another, under the rewards of such blessings as are promised to good 
men,” 
There are very few entries in this or any other Vestry Minute 
Book that are worth transcribing. They contain, for the most 
part, simply a statement of the Income and Expenditure for the re- 
pairs of the Church, &c., from year to year. Amongst the last are 
commonly included the money paid for ‘foxes, —‘ martin catts,’-— 
hedgehogs,—weasels,—and sparrows;—as lately as 40 years ago 
one halfpenny was allowed for every sparrow destroyed, and the 
amount so expended duly entered in the ‘Church Book.’ From 
the same record we learn that in 1729 the Organ was erected at 
the expense of the Parish,—that in the following year, the Nave 
was ceiled, and a new window inserted on the south side of the 
Church; that in 1731 a ‘ Dial’ was placed on the Porch, and an 
‘Hour-glass’ purchased. In 1732 there is an entry which proves 
that the position in which the pulpit stood till quite recently, viz., 
against the centre of the south wall of the Nave, was itself but one 
of modern adoption:—‘ Ordered that the Churchwardens do set 
back the old Gallery and put some ornament on the pillar that 
supports the pulpit.” —Three years afterwards, in 1735, we have the 
