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Northam Churchwardens Account book
of receipts and disbursements
(1774-1813)
Transcribed from original document in North Devon Record Office, ref: 1843A-PW/1/a/4
by David Carter 2021
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Notes on the Transcript:
• This transcript has been made from the Northam Parish Churchwardens Account book which covered the years 1774 to 1813.
• The pages of the account book were not numbered, but the transcript distinguishes the start of new pages with horizontal lines.
• Few dates are given, but where they have been written, they have been placed in the left-hand columns.
• All words and names have been transcribed verbatim, even when they were obviously mis-spelt.
• Anything in square brackets has been added by the transcriber.
• Some further notes appear at the end of this document, but first here are the surname and property name indexes, and a preliminary version of the full transcript.
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Street names:
• Gaping Street (Appledore) is the former name for Bude Street.
• Cock Street (Appledore) is the former name for One End Street.
Public houses:
Various Public Houses are mentioned in this document, including the landlords who supplied ale for Church festivities.
• Mary Levey was the landlady of the Kings Arms in Northam.
• Gregory Tuplin was landlord of the Swan Inn, Northam (recorded in 1806 as being the 'Old Swan').
• The Woolpack was in Appledore, thought to be around Canns Court (now demolished) at the southern end of Irsha Street.
• The Three Tuns was at 4 Meeting Street Appledore.
• The Globe (Inn) was at 23 Market Street, Appledore.
• The Red Lion was in Appledore, location unknown (although a later Red Lion stood at the corner of Market Street and Vernon's Lane).
Definitions:
• Maund - A large square basket or hamper, sometimes with a hinged lid in two parts.
• Tent - Rough Spanish red wine, usually spiced, used as Sacramental wine.
• Crease - unknown.
• Nitch - A bundle of combed reeds weighing 14lb or 28lb.
• Scantle slates - small slates typically ranging in length from 14" or 12", to 6" long.
• Healing stones - A flat slate used for roofing. *
* The huge quantity of ‘Healing stones’ being acquired does question whether this definition is correct, so this was investigated further.
• In the date-range of this account book, nearly 90,000 thousand stones were obtained, at an average cost of 8 shillings per thousand. Given that a quantity of slates was also obtained during this period, at a cost of 10 shillings per thousand, we can reasonably assume this definition is correct, and that these were stones for roofing, despite the huge quantity.
• In the Bideford Port Books for 1680, 270,000 Healing or Hilling stones arrived from Padstow on nine separate cargoes that year. The port of origin for this product suggests these might have come from the Delabole Slate Quarry.
Rates and Rents:
According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_rate, “the church rate was a tax formerly levied in each parish in England and Ireland for the benefit of the parish church. The rates were used to meet the costs of carrying on divine service, repairing the fabric of the church and paying the salaries of the connected officials. It was a personal charge imposed on the occupier of land or of a house in the parish, and, though it was compulsory, it was often difficult to enforce: especially so in the case of Nonconformists, who had conscientious objections to supporting the Established Church. The objections of the Nonconformists were not only on principle. The Church of England received financial support from Parliament, while Nonconformist congregations were entirely dependent on voluntary contributions.”
A number of Rates were collected annually at a cost of about £5 or £6 each - these were presumably church-owned buildings, and the rates were for the whole building and land.
The majority of other charges seem to be rent charges, some as little as six pence, and were possibly like a ground rent for church-owned land, or parish land.
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