Pray is there any authority for the inscription as it there stands?
E. N. H.
343. Religious Houses in East Sussex.
—Can any of your readers refer me to any sources of information, printed or in manuscript, in addition to those mentioned in the last edition of Dugdale's Monasticon, respecting the following religious houses in East Sussex: Otham, Bayham, Michelham, Robertsbridge?
E. V.
344. Parish Registers—Right of Search—Fees claimable.
—Considerable attention has of late been excited with reference to the difficulties attending the ordinary means of access to various public depositories of documentary evidence in this country. In some of these departments, the commencement of a welcome reform is already apparent; others, it is but reasonable to hope, will, ere long, yield to the frank and inquisitive spirit of the times in this respect. The present communication is confined to a very wide, though less dignified source of official information, viz. Parish Registers. I am sure I need not say one word to illustrate the importance of the last-mentioned class of evidence to the genealogist, the topographer, or the archæological inquirer in general,—in one word, to those who enter into the spirit of the "NOTES AND QUERIES." I beg, therefore, to submit the following inquiries:
1. Have the actual parishioners of a place a right to consult their own register of baptisms, marriages, and burials, gratuitously? If not:—
2. What fee is legally demandable,—and by whom,—and under what restrictions? And—
3. Do the terms differ when the inquirer is not a parishioner? If so, in what respect do they differ?