| Description | Also receipt and catalogue number in connection with Ecclesiastical Art Exhibition 1910. (For details of the other items sent see St. Mary's Restoration Book P1506/13).
J. & J.A. Venn's Alumni Cantabrigienses gives a brief survey of the life of Dr. Martin Hill. Son of William Hill, gentleman of London, he was educated at Westminster School and St. John's College, Cambridge, where he was admitted in 1656 at the age of 16. He gained degrees of B.A., M.A., B.D. and D.D. between 1660 and 1703, and was ordained priest at Lincoln in 1661. His first living was that of Penn, Buckinghamshire, 1661-1663, after which he became vicar of Swaffham St. Cyriac 1664 and of Swaffham St. Mary 1667, holding the united benefice until his death on the 28th January 1712/13.
4 Pages originally bearing passages in Latin, have been cut from the front of the book, which now begins with an account of the circumstances leading to the unification of the benefices by Act of Parliament in 1667 (see P150/3/1). In 1663, Martin Hill, already holding the living of Swaffham St. Mary was, on the nomination of Henry Brunsel Prebendary of Ely, presented by the Dean and Chapter to the vicarage of Swaffham St. Cyriac. Meanwhile the occupation of the two rectories by a single tenant had led to a considerable intermingling of the lands belonging to each parish, so that Martin Hill and the tenant, Edmund Drury, gentleman, had finally to attempt an equal division of lands between the two, to the satisfaction of both the Bishop and the Dean and Chapter of Ely, by obtaining an Act of Parliament (see P150/31). The terms of the latter are briefly listed. After the Act the value of the vicarage was estimated at £100 per annum, but details are given of the ways in which income from Tithes was increased up to 1693. There is also a full account of the structural alterations carried out when the two vicarage houses were converted into one at a total cost of £80. Improvements were also made in the cottage adjoining the churchyard.
The Tithe Accounts are contained in the remainder of the volume and include a list of rights and dues belonging to the vicarage and the amounts payable yearly by the possessors of titheable property. Scales of tithes on farm animals, hay, corn, wool and other produce, charges on each household, rents of certain lands, including those occupied by the tenants of the rectories, and fees for marriages, churchings and burials are recorded in detail. Finally there are the yearly accounts, covering the period 1693-1706, of 167 persons liable to tithe. Some entries are very brief but for the more substantial proprietors, particularly Roger Rant and Francis Waters, exact details of the lands occupied, the number of animals kept year by year, the size of dovecotes and orchards, and the yields of grain and wool are recorded. |