![]() | CITY OF WORCESTER. 365 work, has about 500 sittings, 213 free; value of living, £180, but the endowment is only £62, the rest being made up of fees, &c. Sir 0. Wakeman's trustees are patrons ; incumbent, Rev. W. Crowther. There are three other churches in and near the city part of the parish, viz.: St. George's, a poverty-stricken building of the date of 1830, with nearly 700 sittings, cost £3,500; Rev. B. Davis incumbent; value of living, £170. St. Stephen's Church, at Barbonrne, a handsome new church, founded by the late Miss Lavender, with 530 sittings; Rev. T. G. Curtler perpetual curate; value of living, £45, to be largely increased at the death of a lady; and St. Oswald's, a small chapel to the hospital of that name, Rev. T. S. Jones chaplain; value, £100. A fourth church has been projected for the Tything part of the parish, with a population of about 2,500, but an effort is now being made to connect this with the chapel of St. Oswald, which is to be rebuilt. The erection of one good church to serve both the hospital and the district would not only be a boon to the neighbourhood, but I believe it is a right which the inhabitants can demand. The parish records of Claines prove that the tything of Whistones was an ancient township before Claines became a separate parish; it had its own free church and officers, and was never included in the parish of Claines; and Leland and all the old historians tell us that St. Oswald's was a free chapel for the use of the district. There is a small Presbyterian chapel at Fearnall (Vernal) heath, another growing village in the parish, where also there is a railway station. St. Clement's : here is a population of 2,434, seated almost entirely on the western side of the Severn, which divides them and the people of St, John's from the rest of the city. The old church was on the eastern bank of the river, and was frequently flooded, so that the parson has been known to move up the central aisle in a boat; and, indeed, the emoluments of the incumbent were said to include all the salmon he might be enabled to catch within the sacred walls! Some Early Norman remains of the old church still exist, |