290 OLDBERROW.

landowners, Colonel Digby, and John Gibbs, T. Sheaf, and J. Thorp, Esqrs.; but strange to say, there are no resident gentry in this beautiful and fertile spot. There are some curious superstitions and old customs among the labourers, one of which is that they will have no washing about on a Good Friday, as being a forerunner of ill luck! It is also unlucky for a female to enter the house first on New Year's Day; but this, I believe, is a superstition general in Worcestershire - even in its enlightened chief city, and not merely among the lower ranks.

There is a small endowment (£12 a year) for a school at Offenham, which is said to be well worked.

Oldberrow.

NEAR Beoley, and running into Warwickshire towards Henley-in-Arden. Has an acreage of 1,185, and a population of about 50 (no increase since the time of Elizabeth) ; the labourers' cottages having been pulled down by Mr. Knight a few years ago, and the house of the principal proprietor of the parish shut up and left to ruin, owing to unhappy family circumstances. There are but nine houses in the parish, and no resident gentry, no railway station, no police station, no inn, no Dissenters' chapel, no lawyer, no resident incumbent, nor any public building besides the church. W. G. Newton, Esq., is lord of the manor, and, with Mr. W. Martin, a chief landowner. Wheat and beans are mainly grown, and the little settlement employ themselves entirely in agriculture. Rev. H. W. Salmon is the rector; value of living, £200; Mrs. Peshall patroness. The church is small, and of no great interest, but contains more sittings than there are people to occupy them. The parish belonged to the Abbey of Evesham. An ancient