To the Revd the Minister of Axminster

Chanter 232A, 199

1. Residence, curate and lecturer: I reside personally upon my Cure and in the Vicarage House, & have from my first Settlement in the Parish. I have no Curate for Axminster. Nor is there here any Lecturer.

2. Other benefices: I have another, Bovy Tracy in this County, in the Deanry of Moreton Hampsted, & Archdeaconry of Totnes.

3. Divine service at other churches: I do not.

4. Frequency of divine service: Both Parts of the Day, with a Sermon constantly morning & Afternoon.

5. Frequency of communion: Five or Six Times in the Year – Christmas, first Sunday in Lent, Easter, Whitesuntide, Michaelmas. And when the space of Time runs out a greater lenth between Whitesuntide & Michaelmas, about a month or five weeks before Michaelmas, & the same space of Time after it.

6. Catechising of children: During the Summer months when I also read some lectures upon the several Parts of the Catechism, that I wish to be of Some use to Persons of the more uneducated Part of the Congregation of uper Years, as well as younger Persons.

7. Church fabric: I conceive in good Repair, & the Church-Yard properly kept, as well as It can be in a lage borough such as is Axminster: And every thing for divine Service is ve[r]y decent.

8. Glebe terrier: I have one of the Vicarial House & Garden: Glebe Lands there are none at least appearing or traceable at present.

9. Number of families: According to my best judgment; They are between Three & Four Hundred Families: I conceive somewhat more than Three & considerably less than four Hundred.

10. Chapels: There is no Chappel in the Parish. But there are two Daughter Churches appendant to Axminster in the adjoin[in]g Parishes of Kilmington & Membery, members or Portions of this vicarage: One of which, Membery, is serv'd by Mr William Palmer one Part of the Day, the other by Mr Henry Sleep, in the same manner, as has been the Custom for Time imemorial – only with this Difference, that the Same Curate as usually been in the Service of both churches.

11. Papists, dissenters and meeting houses: Yes, Several Families; to the number of between 20 & 30 People. The Two Principal Families <are> Descendants of a Former Steward of Lord Petre, the Lord of the Manor, who has great Property in this & some adjoining Parish & That of a present Steward with some of inferior Note – A dissenting Meeting House of the Presbyterian Persuasion – some Anabaptists not numerous (without a Meeting House in the Town or Parish. Methodists pretty numerous who have a Building where They resort. The Teacher in the Presbyterian way is Mr ?John Stevens in the Anabaptist way, none: among the Methodists, one Joseph Morgan of the Town - very frequently itinerant Undertakers - ?from all Places.

12. School, alms-houses, hospital and charitable endowments: Here is a public School, for Reading writing & Arithmetic, supported by Contribution, as well as charitable Endowments (the Master a sober & ingenious man likewise, instructs in the Rudiments of Grammar, as well as the more useful Branches of mathematical learning. There is another within a few weeks lately opened but without any public Encouragement & I conceive must be shortly liv'd. Here are no Almshouses, (unless a workhouse may with no Endowment be Considerd as such. No Hospital, no Parochial Library.)

13. Charity: Here are Several Benefactions Lands & Tenements left for pious & charitable Uses. Which are enumerated in a Tablet & set up for public Inspection in the Church: I beleive they are very duly applied: as under this Circumstance, as not easily Conceivable They should be otherways.

    Priest's orders and institution:

    I was ordain'd Priest, by the Bishop of Exeter the 29^th of September 1734
    I was Collated to this Church of Axminster the 15^th of July, in the Year 1767.