HISTORY OF STAFFORDSHIRE. 67 



Salter's-bridge, being greatly in decaye and broken downe, was of 

 new begonne and made broder by two foote, which cost the Work- 

 manship tow hundred poundes, whereof this hundred of Offeley 

 payed one hundred poundes, the other four hundreds payed the 

 rest : the 17th of July the foundation began to be layed. 



" 1613. Robert Nevell the father, and Robert Nevell the son, 

 being in Salter-holme-field the 26th day of June, tending of the 

 towne beastes, in the herdman's walk there, after stony furlonge 

 side, about four o'clock in the afternoon of the same day, their 

 was a mightie great tempest of rayne, lyghtning, and thunder, 

 and the father and sonne standing under an oke tree, to save them- 

 selves from the rayne, weare both of them stricken to death, the 

 barke of the oke tree rent a great length, the leaves of the trete 

 smitten and blowen away the most parte of them. One other young6 

 youth of ten yeares age, Thomas Frauncis, being their to fetch 

 or help the herdman, being within the compasse of tenne yeardes of 

 the same place, was saved, and nothing hurte as the other, the 

 heares of their head singed with the lyghtning and in some parte of 

 the body, and face blackened. 



" 1614. The mill in Alrewas-hey was reared and sette up the 

 20th daye of November, but it did not grind until the 21st of De- 

 cember after, being the feast of Saint Thomas the Apostle. 



" 1621. This year the fallow fields of Alderwas were first sowed 

 with pease. 



" 1621. August 21st, King James at Whichnor : the Court held 

 at the hall there. 



" 1643. Upon the 13th of August, being the LordVday, there 

 happened in this town of Alrewas a suddaine and fearful fire, in the 

 house of George Thorniwarke, an alehouse near the church, occa- 

 sioned by shooting off a horne-gun ; which, in one hoWer's tyme, 

 consumed the said house and most of his goods, and the barn and 

 hay of John Fitchet, and the house and all the goods of John 

 Francis, and burnt up the trees about them, and had like to endan- 

 gered the whole towne. God give us grace hereby to amend our lives. 



" 1675. On January 4, between the hours of seven and eight at 

 night, a terrible earthquake was felt at Alrewas, 



" 1711. All the bells at Alfewas church were re-cast this year. 



" 1793. There has been erected, within a few years past, a 

 cotton manufactory at Alrewas, belonging to which there are 300 

 persons daily employed ; the present proprietors of the said manu- 

 factory are Messrs, Dickins and Finloe, of BurtoB-upon-Treut. 



