Noake's Worcestershire Page 277

MATHON. 277

The lands in this parish which belonged to the Beauchamps of Powick were inherited and eventually sold by the Lygons of Madresfield. The Cliffs then became the chief landholders, but their property now belongs to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners.

Rev. A. J. Douglas is the vicar; value of living about £200; church accommodation, 227, all free. The church, which is situated in a sequestered valley, has a chancel, nave, and western tower. Its eastern end is a singular specimen of Norman work, and there is a Norman piscina, a very fine fourteenth century timber roof to nave, Jacobean pulpit, curious monuments, and other objects demanding examination. The work of restoration has been going on here by instalments ever since the year 1849. Upon removing the external plaster from the walls, very ancient "herring-bone" work (like the masonry of the old Romans), running along two-thirds of the nave from the westward, was found, and also a very old blocked-up window, pronounced to be much older than the genuine Norman work of the church. There is a fine peal of six bells (the best in this part of England), and a well-organised ringing club, under the presidency of the Vicar. This is as it should be.

A picturesque parochial school was built near the church in 1861, and a commodious vicarage has been erected. A few Dissenters, apparently of no specified denomination, meet in a small building recently erected.

There was formerly a superstition in this parish that if land were left unsown in a field there would be a death in the family within the year; and when the accident was discovered they did not sow it again. And old women were intrusted with the cure of burns by charming, which they did by repeating a certain number of times the old doggrel rhyme, "There were two angels came from the North," &c.

There are the following old names in Mathon: Dobbin's Meadow, Horsenetts, Clater Park, The Yell, Penfield, Quinn Hill, Jack Field, Gronage Moor Meadow, Little Bervet's,