258 LONGDON, WITH CASTLE MORTON AND CHASELEY.

the late John Dowdeswell, Esq., it reverted to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster; but the Ecclesiastical Commissioners are now the lords of the manor, and the other principal landowners are - in Longdon, Messrs. Stone, Dowdeswell, J. Rayer, and Sir Baldwin Leighton; in Castle Morton, Earl Somers, Harris's trustees, the Church Commissioners, &c.; in Chaseley, the same Commissioners, Bellenger's trustees, Pope, Lord, &e. The Commissioners have lately enfranchised several small farms in the above-named parishes. There are no resident gentry that bear arms (I don't mean military weapons), but Mr. Stone. In the seventeenth century the gentry were more numerous here, for I find among those who were fined by Charles I for not taking the order of knighthood were John Wrenford, William Parsons, Thomas Parker, William Hill, John Hill, Thomas Cooke, and Edward Neast, all of Longdon. Rev. C. F. Secretan is the vicar of Longdon ; patrons, Dean and Chapter of Westminster ; value, £360 ; population, 626; acreage, 3,893; church accommodation, 251; free sittings, 71. Rev. A. Wood is the vicar's curate at Castle Morton; population, 818; acreage, 3,655; church, accommodation, 327; free seats, 150. Rev. S. S. Paris is the perpetual curate of Chaseley; patron, the vicar of Longdon; value, £130; population, 307; acreage, 1,605 ; church accommodation, 300; free seats, 60. The population has only about doubled in three centuries. In the seventeenth century great vigilance was exercised throughout the country to prevent the multiplication of poor families, but especially so at Longdon. In 1612, William Dench, labourer, of that parish, in a petition to the Worcestershire Sessions, set forth that "being destitute of habitation, and having a wife and seven small children, William Parsons, of Longdon, in charity, took him to live in a little sheepcot of his in the said towne, with the consent of the churchwardens and overseers, but because yr. poor orator (the usual term for 'petitioner') had not license in open Quarter Sessions, nor under the hands and seals of the lord of the manor, and because the said sheepcot standeth on the