1240 Anniversary Address. 



were 76 persons, belonging to the parish, buried in Ingram 

 churchyard, but during the same number of years, from 1853 

 to 1860, the number of burials of the same class of persons 

 was only eleven ; and therefore, after making an allowance 

 for the longer duration of human life in our own times, it 

 may be inferred, that Ingram parish was six-fold more popu- 

 lous in the seventeenth century than it is at the present 

 period. 



In these registers we find evidences of the operation of a 

 statute passed in the reign of Charles II. for the encourage- 

 ment of the woollen manufactures, and prevention of the 

 exportation of money for the importing of linen, and enacting 

 that no corpse should be buried in any shirt, sheet, shift, or 

 shroud, or anything whatsoever made or mingled with flax, 

 hemp, silk, hair, gold, or silver, other than what is made of 

 sheep's wool only, on pain of £5. The following extract 

 from the register illustrating this law is curious and in- 

 teresting : — 



' February 6, 1682. Isabella Wright (the child of Geo. 

 Wright of Reavely.) 



' An affidavit in writing under the hand and scale of Ann 

 Robertson, that the abovesaid Isabella Wright was not wrapt 

 up or buried in anything mingled with flax and other 

 materiall but sheep's wool onely, as also a certificate under 

 the hand of Arthur Eliott Gierke (before whom the said 

 affidavit was made), were brought the day and yeare above- 

 said. 



Aquilina Forster.' 



Above Ingram the valley contracts, and the river flows 

 between high hills — Brough Law on the south, and Reavely 

 hill on the north. Though wanting the adornment of trees, 

 save here and there an old thorn, there is much picturesque 

 grandeur in this part of the valley — ^sublimity breathes 

 from the form of the hills.' The hill sides, though steep and 

 broken with scars, are for the most part covered with a 

 bright green vegetation ; and here and there variety is given 



