Topographical Memoranda.
Clerical Longevity.
The following is an authentic account, from the “Antiquarian Repertory,” of the incumbents of a vicarage near Bridgenorth in Shropshire. Its annual revenue, till the death of the last incumbent here mentioned, was not more than about seventy pounds per annum, although it is a very large and populous parish, containing at least twenty hamlets or townships, and is scarcely any where less than four or five miles in diameter. By a peculiar idiom in that country, the inhabitants of this large district are said to live “in Worfield-home:” and the adjacent, or not far distant, parishes (each of them containing, in like manner, many townships, or hamlets) are called Claverly, or Clarely-home, Tatnall-home, Womburn-home, or, as the terminating word is every where pronounced in that neighbourhood, “whome.”
“A list of the vicars of Worfield in the diocese of Lichfield and Coventry, and in the county of Salop, from 1564 to 1763, viz.
“Demerick, vicar, last popish priest, conformed during the six first years of Elizabeth. He died 1564.
| Barney, vicar | 44 years; died 1608. |
| Barney, vicar | 56 years; died 1664. |
| Hancocks, vicar | 42 years; died 1707. |
| Adamson, vicar | 56 years; died 1763. |
Only 4 vicars in 199 years.”