162 FECKENHAM.

The ancient forest of Feckenham was greatly enlarged by Henry II, and was not entirely swept away till the time of Charles I, when the salt works of Droitwich had so thinned out the woods for fuel as to render the use of coal necessary. The King's foresters held their courts here for the punishment of offenders, &c.; and it is recorded that on the site where their prison stood crops of tobacco were cultivated after the disafforesting. The Bishop of Worcester, as also the Prior and Monastery, had certain rights in the forest, and frequent collisions between them and the foresters - an impudent and abandoned race of men - were said to have occurred. John de Feckenham, the last Abbot of Westminster - said by one party to have been a model of piety, learning, and humility, but painted by Strype in somewhat different colours - was born in this forest.

A French abbey (Lyra) formerly held the rectory of Feckenham, but Henry VIII granted it to Richard Taverner; afterwards it fell to the Culpepers and other private hands. The patronage is now in the hands of trustees. Value of living, £330 net; vicar, Rev. Z. W. Hinton. The church is a large structure, sufficient perhaps for 600 people, with chancel, nave, north aisle, and western tower, chiefly Perpendicular work, with some transition to Early English at the east end. The building was in a most barbarous state till recently, when Mr. Neale, the lay impropriator, rebuilt the chancel, but in doing so, I am informed, smashed an ancient monument of one of the Culpepers, and buried it in the chancel to raise the floor higher! In 1866, die rest of the church was partly renovated by the parishioners, but a horrid gallery on the north side still remains to disgrace the fabric. The vicar gave a new organ. There is a beautiful peal of six (five of them old) bells in the tower, which are soon to be increased to eight.

Aii effort is being made to provide an endowment for a district church at the populous hamlet of Astwood, for which Mr. Vernon, M.P., has offered a site. There is a flourishing