ALTARNON CHURCH. 



273 



75. Sea-weed scroll-work. 78. Panelled tracery. 



>7A o QTV , QQ i 79. Cross with twisted wreath ; 



to. came as l . three bosses at end of arms and 



77. Human-headed fish-like crea- head ; base of cross resting on 



tures. a skull ; ladder on either side. 



The only monument in the churchyard of more than local 

 interest is the one, " Sacred to the Memory of Digory Isbell, 



who died 1795, and of Elizabeth his wife, who exchanged 



earth for heaven. ... in 1805. They were the first who enter- 

 tained the methodist preachers in this county, and lived and died 

 in that connection ; but strictly adhered to the duties of the 

 Established Church." 



The parish chest conceals no surprising treasures. The 

 Registers commence in 1688. There are the usual entries of 

 those buried in woollen, and of the fees paid for vermin heads — 

 kites, fitchows,* weasels, otters, and grays (badgers) ; the agree- 

 ments and disagreements of parish apprentices with their 

 masters; and the strict injunctions to tything-men and constables 

 to consider all persons attempting to effect a settlement in a 

 fresh place as ''rogues and vagabonds," and to treat them 

 accordingly. The affairs of the body politic were managed by a 

 parish jury of twelve men, — an extra-sized box pew, close to the 

 screen, was assigned to their use — with power, when need 

 required, •" to nomirate and choose others to be their associates 

 and of y e number of y e twelve men, to do and to act in y e man- 

 agement of y e said parish as twelve men of ancient custom used 

 to do :" and it is rather a pity this custom should have been 

 allowed to lapse. Nevertheless, other usages of bygone days 

 are still in force. The parish clerk, a rara avis of olden time, 

 still survives, to repeat, with due solemnity, the various responses 

 at the occasional services ; instruments of music, brass and string, 

 help on Sundays to assist the voices, and supply the necessary 

 volume of sound for so large a church ; the only obstacle to 

 using, for the lessons, the Great Bible — dated 1701, and pro- 

 fusely illustrated from end to end with curious full-page 

 engravings — is the inability of the present Lectern to sustain its 

 massive proportions. 



* A polecat was trapped at Trebartha, in February ; about the same date 

 the papers recorded that the farmers of Lincolnshire were buying up stoats at 

 7s. 6d. each, to cope with the plague of rats in the stacks. 



