84 KINGSBRIDGE 



persecuteth the Saintes. This is as farr as wee can say- 

 in this matter att the p'sent." 



We find under date 1684, that "a justice called John 

 Bare, keeps Friends out of their house." [This was a 

 house they rented for the purpose of holding their meetings 

 in.] In the first month of 168i the prisons of Devon- 

 shire alone held no less than 104 members of the Society 

 of Friends ; the fines also were ruinous : for one small 

 " First day " meeting alone, of Kingsbridge Friends, in 

 1670, goods were levied by distress to the value of 

 £85 lis. 8d., and in consequence of this severe opposition, 

 it was not until 1702 that they could assemble here in 

 a building of their own. 



The Friends of Kingsbridge had, in 1693, purchased a 

 plot containing twelve perches in Sugar, (or Sidger) Lane, 

 for a burying place, and in 1697 they obtained for the 

 site of their present meeting house and burial ground, 

 a plot called Old Walls, or Cutler's tenement, also an herb 

 garden behind the said Old Walls, and a meadow or quillet 

 of land, lying below the herb garden, and divided from 

 it by a " lake of water, that runneth to the town mills 

 of Kingsbridge." 



The monthly Meetings of the Western division of the 

 County continued to be held at Kingsbridge in rotation, 

 till the end of 1871; but the migration of Friends from 

 the town has now so reduced their numbers that it has 

 been found necessary to close the Meeting House. 



The information respecting the Wesleyan body, was 

 supplied by Mr. J. Pulliblank. He says, " Although Kings- 

 bridge possesses interesting souvenirs of the preaching of 

 George Whitefield, there is no reason to believe that either 

 of the brothers Wesley, or their coadjutors, ever visited 



