Snippets from the Parish Registers

Compiled by Christine Suter and Barbara Jones

1693 Buried a poore child with no name whose friends live in Stratton.

1707 Buried Ezekiel Weston, a welchman who drowned himself. Permitted to be interred in the churchyard without the office of burial.

1709 Buried Charles Staniford, a draper (who cut his throat with a razor and perished by that action on November 20th). Permitted to be interred in the churchyard under the northside of the tower.

1713 Buried Mary Stiff. Widow aged 107.

1724 Buried George Winsgrove. Died of the bite of a mad dog.

1735 Baptised George Bates, the son of Robert and Sarah, comedians of St James, Westminster.

1761 Baptised Thomas. Son of a certain woman.

1790 The smallpox raged so furiously that the whole parish were necessitated to be inoculated.

1804 Buried Stephen Cheesley, yeoman of Hampton. Found drowned in the Thames and Severn Canal. Buried by coroners warrant.

1833 Baptised William Page, son of William and Sophia. Father a convict, mother in poor house.

1838 Baptised Matilda, daughter of Alexander and Marianne McPheeson, a traveller and shower of wild beasts.

1808 The heat of the weather of Tuesday 12th, Wednesday 13th and Thursday 14th July 1808 was more intense than it ever was observed before in England. On the 13th, which was the hottest day, farenheit thermometer was generally at 92 in the shade. I was informed that in some places it rose as high as 96. Edward Rowden, Vicar.

1809 In the year 1809 a new Vicarage house began to be erected in the premises in Highworth, which was completed in the Autumn of 1810. For this reason the profits of the Vicarage were mortgaged for the sum of £850 to be paid off by instalments in 20 years, according to the act of parliament in that behalf. Edward Rowden, Vicar.