ALVECHURCH. 13

apparently, a Bishop over his own parish, except so far as granting marriage licenses. These "peculiars," however, were very properly extinguished by a late Act of Parliament.

Stiff loam, with a substratum of marl, constitutes the soil of this neighbourhood. Formerly there was a great mass of forest hereabout, traversed by the Roman Icknyng or Icknield Street, and the woods supplied a portion of Droitwich salt works in fuel, in return for which the Bishop received the produce of eight salt-pans yearly. This was the practice in many other parishes of the county. The Birmingham and Worcester canal and river Arrow, on its way from the Lickey to the Avon, pass through the parish, which is seven miles in circumference, including the hamlets (or "yields," as they are here called) of Rowney Green, Farhill, Hopwood, Lea

End, &c.

At the Reformation there were 400 honseling people here (i. e,, people of an age to take the sacrament) ; in the time of Elizabeth there were 102 families; and in 1861 the population •was 1,581. Acreage, 6,747. The produce of the soil is varied. Flax was grown here in 1782 by James Heynes, and under certain statutes of George III he obtained bounties for the same, bnt no enactments seem ever to have made this a favourite crop. The chief things cultivated here now are nails, needles, and fish-hooks. The principal landowners are Lady Windsor, Mr. H. Pugdale, of Bordesley Park, Mr. John Boulton, and Mr. H. Luckcoclt.

Some of the rectors of Alvechnrch have been notable in their time. There was Dr. Hickes, author of "Thesaurus," in the time of James II; there was the Rev. Wm. Hollington, who in 1641 was reported as a frequenter of alehouses by day and night, "enforcing others to the drinking of whole cuppes," and "greatly defamed of incontinensie with his neighbours' wives, as bad as Bankes, his predecessor, who to prevent punishment for his unchast and incestuous living run away."This Hollington was accused of associating with; a "dangerous armed Papist," of being "a curser and