FLADBURY. 165

and a woman. [Describes other tombs.] Under the three steps which ascend the east end is a faire charnel house with many bones. Mr. Darbey now lives in this parish, where Lord Bernard lay. He has £100 per annum. These coates following are an old glass in the old window in the dyning room of the parsonage house, near the church of Fladbury, a faire, large, old and statelie parsonage [arms of the see of Beauchamp, Montacute, Clare, &c.] On most of the panes is written in a scroll 'Emanuel.' The parson's wife of Fladbury, a young woman, often carrying the milk payle on her head in the streete - so far from pride."

Clergymen in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries occupied a far lower social scale than at present; it was an injunction of Queen Elizabeth that no clergyman should presume to marry a servant girl without the consent of her master and mistress.

Fladbury was considered one of the best rectories in the diocese, having still a " statelie parsonage," with admirable gardens, in which vines were cultivated in olden times, overlooking a pleasant river in a very charming country. Indeed it was generally taken by the Archbishop for his " option." Value, £721; patron, the Bishop ; rector, Rev. J. Havilaud; church accommodation, 420; free seats, 155. This church is one of the very few in Worcestershire which contains memorial brasses, these commemorating the last knight and lady of Throckmorton (1445) and two rectors of Fladbury (1458 and 1504). As beseemeth a living of such importance, the church is of large proportions, having a chancel, nave, north and south aisles, and western tower. The basement of the latter is of Norman work, but its upper stages were constructed about a century or more ago. The rest of the church is mainly Perpendicular. The chancel underwent a thorough restoration in 1864-5, at the joint expense of the rector and J. Cartwright, Esq., of Craycombe House. A vestry was added to the north side of the chancel, a handsome alabaster reredos was erected, and. a stained glass window inserted as a memorial of the late