St. Alban's.
No records of any interest are to be found here. The register begins with 1630, and the account book 1751, in which year the total expenditure for this little parish amounted to £20. 19s. 10d., including £12 for the poor. The Whitsun farthings usually amounted to 6d. per annum, which, at a farthing per head per householder, showed twenty-four subscribers.
The Rev. J. H. Wilding also holds this small rectory; churchwardens, Mr. F. St. John and Mr. Nicholson. Population in 1851, 286.
St. Martin's.
Here I found a register commencing with 1538, nicely copied in one uniform hand for a series of years. An hiatus occurs between 1560 and 1573, where the leaves have been torn out. In the 22nd year of Queen Elizabeth's reign, "John Wilkinson, the parson," caused to be entered on the register his license to one Thomas Heywood, "he beinge very sicke in body," to eat flesh in Lent so long as his illness continued, and no longer. To show the disturbing influence of the Civil Wars, it will be sufficient to state, that only one wedding is recorded in 1643, one in 1644, four in 1645, five in 1646, and so on. About the year 1653 the entries of a peculiar sort of marriages commence of which the following are specimens:
"Mem. John Cartwright of ye parish of Wellan, and Anne Elvinges, of ye parish of Handbure, were joined together man and wiffe by John Nash, justis of peas, by consent, beinge lawfully published 3 severall market dayes in 3 severall weekes, without anie exception, ye 3d of Januarie. Witnesses, Richard Harrise, Marie Salloway, and John Robere."