"M.S. Under the middle stone that guards the ashes of a certain fryer, sometime vicar of this place, is raked up the dust of William Quelche, B.D., who ministred in the same since the reformation. His lot was through God's mercy to burn incense here about 30 years, and ended his course Aprill the 10, an. dñi 1654, being aged 64 years."
Mr. Quelche was vicar in troublous times, and the distractions of the Civil War led to a hiatus in the parish registers. The fault lay with the parish clerk, but the conscientious Mr. Quelche felt bound to clear himself in the eyes of future ages by a long apology in the Register of baptisms, which begins beseechingly enough:—
"Good Reader tread gently:
For though these vacant yeares may seeme to make me guilty of thy censure, neither will I symply excuse myselfe from all blemishe; yet if thou doe but cast thine eie uppon the former pages and se with what care I have kepte the annalls of mine owne tyme, and rectifyed sundry errors of former times thou wilt beginn to thinke ther is some reason why he that begann to build so well should not be able to make an ende."
But the entries for the years before the war broke out were occasionally a little vague. Here are three full years' records of marriages:—
"1640. A Londoner married mr. Kepps sister of micham on Easter monday.
1641. Mr. Meece married a couple who came from fishsted whose names he could not remember.
1642. Not one marryed woe to ye vicar."
Some of the names and surnames sound odd:—
Epaphroditus wood. Epaphroditus Wandling. Anne Waweker.
Hevedebar Hill. Wroe. Buttonshere. Dilcock.
Gander. Mustian. Thunderman. Nep. Milfe.