Parishes well endowed might be able to dispense with some of
the devices for money-getting which we shall have occasion to
enumerate, but then, after all, endowments might come and they might
go;[203] moreover, the financial policy of any one parish would, of
course, differ according to the disposition or the ability of those
who shaped it.
Of Loddon, Norfolk, we are told that "no complaint appears about
Church Rates, for there were none, as the revenue of the Town Farm ...
rendered a tax of that description unnecessary."[204]
Of St. Petrock's, Exeter, we are informed that "the parish became so
well endowed by donations of land and houses as to enable the wardens
to dispense almost entirely with the quarterly collections entered in
the earlier accounts."[205] The editor of the Thatcham, Berks,
Accounts, writes: "In the early years of these churchwardens accounts
the available funds were derived chiefly from the two oldest
charities, one called 'Lowndye's Almshouses,' the first account of
which is for the year ... 1561 ... to 1562; the other known as 'the
Church Estate,' the first account of which begins in 1566."[206]
Summoned by the Bodmin, Cornwall, justices in January, 159-4/5, to
make a report as to the parish stock, the representatives of Stratton
certify at sessions that their stock "am[oun]ts to the now some of
Sixteene poundes, some yeares it is more & some yeares lesse.
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