372 A TOPOGRAPHICAL 



5. The yearly interest of sums bequeathed for the use and towards themaitt* 

 tenance of a schoolmaster. 



Ellen Forde (d) left 30/. 



Ellen Forde, daughter of W. F. (c), 20/. 



A SCHOOL and HOUSE for the abode of the parish schoolmaster, 

 is in the church-yard on the eastern side near the Lich-gate. 



The Living is at present (1817) a chapel of ease to Stoke-upon- 

 Trent, Jbut by an Act of Parliament passed eight or ten years ago, 

 upon the death, cession, or other voidance of the present incumbent, 

 it becomes a Rectory, and in addition to its present emoluments, 

 (except c50. a-year now allowed by the rector of Stoke) will be 

 endowed with all the great and small tithes of the township of 

 Norton, which at present belong to the rector of Stoke. The Rev. 

 Daniel Turner is the present incumbent. 



There are three M eting-Houses belonging to Dissenters in this 

 parish, the largest of which stands in the village of Norton. 



Several excommunications are recorded in the parish register, in 

 the seventeenth century. The laxity of ancient church discipline 

 in the present day makes such instances and events scarcely known, 

 or very rare. 



Dr. Plot* records a singular custom, which formerly was observed 

 in this county, in felling oak trees and stripping the bark ; and 

 which he first noticed in this parish. His words are : " In the 

 felling whereof they have this very good custom, that they flaw it 

 standing about the beginning or middle of May, which I first ob- 

 served in some fences near Norton-on-the-Moors, Milton, Badiley, 

 where there were several oakes stood naked, divested of their bark, 

 which they told me would not be felled till Michaelmass following 

 at soonest, or perhaps not till mid-winter, or the ensueing spring ; 

 which I take to be a way of so valuable a consideration, that per- 

 haps it may deserve the debate of a Parliament, whether it might 

 not be worth while to inforce this custome to be strictly observed all 

 over the nation ? for tho' by a reserve in the act for due felling 

 oaken timber, it may be done at any time for building or repairing 

 houses, ships, arid mills ; yet for any other uses none may fell it 

 (in consideration of the tan) where bark is worth but two shillings 

 per load, over and above the charges of barking and pilling, but be- 

 tween the first of April and last of June, when the sap is up, and 

 the bark will run, which causes the out side of the timber to rott 



Chap. ix. sec. 87. 



