52 BLOCKLEY.

Baptist and Primitive Methodist chapels. There was probably a dissenting body here in 1658, in which year Giles Collyer, the pastor, signed Richard Baxter's programme for Christian unity. Collyer was an assistant to the Puritan Commissioners for the ejection of those who were "scandalous, ignorant, and insufficient ministers and schoolmasters;" but he conformed at the Restoration. A reading room has been established in the village for some years, and the amusement of the inhabitants is supposed to be catered for by "penny readings" - a "slow" kind of work though, I guess. The Old Club (friendly society), at the Bell Inn, is among the venerable institutions of the place, having celebrated its centenary on the 7th of April, 1863. I mention this as a somewhat remarkable fact, the usual fate of such societies being to dissolve themselves into "thin air" as soon as their earliest members, who have been subscribing all their lives, begin to fall "upon the books." There is also a club at the Crown, called the Victoria Friendly Society. Another establishment here must be noticed - the Free School. Dr. Saunders erected and gave to the parish the school-house in 1715, and bequests were left by other persons for teaching and clothing poor children. The house was rebuilt in 1826, and in 1850 it was enlarged by Lord Northwick on the national plan, Mr. G. T. Herbert being appointed master, who still fills that office to the satisfaction of the parish. In consequence of the building being partly erected on the churchyard the then vicar (Rev. M. Coyle), after giving permission for the erection, exercised an injudicious interference with Lord Northwick and the parishioners. Litigation ensued, and the schools were divided, the vicar appointing a master in opposition to his lordship, and the latter still retaining his own master and possession of the greater part of the building, and legal possession of the whole. The appointment of mistress was ceded by his lordship in the hope of peaceably settling the dispute. Mr. Coyle having resigned the living, and left the parish in 1855, the Rev. H. Bromfield