Note 8 — Chapter I

The Act for the abolition and sale is printed in Scobell, p. 16. Date, April 30, 1649. There were surveys and valuations made accordingly, of which some records are preserved in the Lambeth Library. As these surveys are often referred to, the following description of them is given from the Catalogue of the Lambeth MSS.:—

"Surveys of the possessions of bishops, deans, and chapters, and other benefices, were made in pursuance of various ordinances of Parliament during the Commonwealth, by surveyors appointed for that purpose, acting on oath, under instructions given to them, as may be seen in Scobell's Acts and Ordinances, A.D. 1649, p. 19, &c. The original surveys were returned to a registrar appointed by the ordinances, and duplicates or transcripts of them were transferred to the trustees or commissioners nominated for the sale of the possessions, who held their meetings in a house in Broad Street, in the City, where these documents remained until after the Restoration." It was afterwards ordered that these records should be delivered to Juxon, Archbishop of Canterbury, to take care of the same, and by him they were deposited in the Lambeth Library. "Some of them were afterwards sent by his Grace to the bishops and deans and chapters to which they belonged, so that the collection in the Lambeth Library is not complete. What remain are bound up in twenty-one large folio volumes, in alphabetical order, of the different dioceses or counties to which they relate. A minute index to the whole, in one folio volume, exhibits the name of every place surveyed. Besides the above, there are surveys of the possessions of the see of Canterbury kept separate from the possession of the other sees, deans and chapters, &c., with indexes in alphabetical order, which are bound in three volumes; of these the second contains original surveys, as far as folio 73, from thence to the end are copies."

Several interesting extracts from the survey are contained in Lyson's Environs. Take the following as illustrative of the religious affairs of the parish of Walthamstow:—

"The commissioners appointed to enquire into the state of ecclesiastical benefices, in 1650, found by their inquest that the vicarage of Walthamstow was worth £40 per annum, including the tithes and glebe. John Wood was then vicar; he had been put in by the committee of plundered ministers; 'but (says the inquest) he is now questioned for his abilities; and certain articles have been exhibited against him to the committee, and he is disliked by the greater part of the inhabitants, who will not come to church to hear him; whereby there is great distraction in the parish.' The jurors report that it was not known in whom the patronage of the vicarage was vested, it having been long in suit, and then as yet undetermined."—Lyson, iv. 221.