BREDON. 61

and Cutsdean, and the hamlets of Hardwick, Kinsham, and Westmancot. Cutsdean is situated amongst the Cotswold Hills, about twelve miles from the village of Bredon. In time of Elizabeth there were fifty-three families in Bredon and twenty-seven in the hamlets. The population is now 1,150; acreage, 1,076; produce, wheat, barley, oats, beans, and root crops. There are several market gardeners, and the allotment system is carried out on a very extensive scale.

The living is a valuable prize - some £2,300 per annum - and the fortunate holder is the Rev. H. Fitzgerald; patron, the Duke of Portland. It was formerly a " peculiar," exempt from the jurisdiction of the Ordinary, but that privilege no longer exists. The church will accommodate 600. There is a Baptist chapel at Westmancot, and a Wesleyan chapel at Kinsham (both in Bredon parish); also some very energetic preaching is carried on at a cottage in Bredon Tillage on Sundays. A free school was founded here in 1718 by W. Hancock, Esq., a barrister and lord of the manor of Norton. There are a dozen boys on the foundation, who are educated, clothed, and apprenticed. About forty boys generally attend the school, of which Mr. Lloyd is the able master. An almshouse for old women also exists in the village; it was founded by Giles Reede early in the seventeenth century.

In "Worcester Monastery and Cathedral" (recently published) it is stated that the Prior of Worcester (William Moore, sixteenth century) sometimes paid his "hunter and companie" for hunting at Bredon Hill; also that in 1661 stone was obtained from the hill for the repair of Worcester Cathedral after the damage it received in the civil wars.