St Laurence Church

• List of vicars, 1326 to 1894
• Will of John Alyn, 1520: this lists all (presumably) the altars in the pre-Reformation church
• Enquiry into the Rectory of Winslow, 1581
• Faculty for restoration 1883
• Vicarage faculty 1863 (and more about the Vicarage)
• Parsons Close and the Tithe Barn
• Description of the church before the Victorian restorations by James Joseph Sheahan (1862)
• Arthur Clear, A Thousand Years of Winslow Life (1888): Living, tithes and advowson of St Laurence church
• Arthur Clear, A Thousand Years of Winslow Life (1888): Parish registers
• Arthur Clear, A Thousand Years of Winslow Life (1888): St Laurence church
• Arthur Clear, A Thousand Years of Winslow Life (1888): Church rate
• Church History on the Winslow Benefice website

Enquiry into the Rectory of Winslow, 1581

National Archives, E178/443 (original in Latin)

According to the Survey of 1556, John Boston held the Rectory of Winslow, i.e. the right to collect the great tithes (now separated from the ownership of the manor), from Lady Day 1544 for 40 years, paying £40 p.a., but he died in 1558. On 25 April 1581, the Exchequer ordered an enquiry into the Rectory of Winslow. According to Clear (1984, 52), the Rectory with all fruits and tenths of corn and hay in Winslow and Shipton, with a barn and close [as held by John Boston], had been demised to David de Leye, goldsmith, on 24 April 1573 for 21 years for £14 p.a. He is not mentioned in the document, but the enquiry apparently resulted from a dispute over the terms of his lease. The commissioners were ordered to find out:

whether (the Rectory's) houses and buildings are in decay and ruin or not, whether any spoliation or waste have been committed or done in and around the aforesaid houses and buildings of the aforesaid Rectory or not. And if so, then who committed or did the same spoliation or waste, and which and what sort of repairs the Rectory or any part of it needs.  And who up to now has been accustomed to hold and maintain the same Rectory, and now and afterwards should hold and maintain it,

The enquiry was held on 20 May 1581 by Paul Dayrell, Michael Harcourte and George Throgmorton (Nicholas Beste, also included in the original commission, apparently did not participate). The following twelve men of Winslow were sworn in:

They say on their oath that the barn of the Rectory of Winslow specified in the aforesaid commission is in decay for lack of repairs to a value of £35. Then the aforesaid jurors say on their oath that spoliation and waste have been committed and left in and around the houses and buildings belonging to the aforesaid Rectory and barn, namely: two "bayes" of the houses and buildings have been wasted and taken away from the Rectory; a structure called "a leanto" is in decay; and that the spoliation and waste committed in the said bayes of the houses and buildings and the decay on the structure amount to a value of £5. And furthermore the aforesaid jurors say on their oath that all necessary repairs of every sort in and around the houses and buildings belonging to the Rectory are to be performed and undertaken by our lady the Queen and the tenant of the above equally and in equal shares.

Clear records the following further leases of the Rectory:

• 28 Jan. 1595: to Henry Best, for 31 years from Lady Day 1605, paying £14 p.a.
• 9 Jan. 1606: to Sir John Fortescue and Richard Tomlyne, paying £14 p.a.

The lease to Henry Best is found in Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1595-7, CCLI 5(6), p.5: 25 Jan 1595

Lease in reversion to Henry Best for 31 years of Winslow parsonage, the site of Whaddon manor, the herbage of Whaddon Park called Queen's Park, woods in Prince's Risborough and South Stoke (Somerset). Total rent £25 5s 4d p.a. No fine, in recompense of pay due to the late Captain David Powell for service in France and the Low Countries, at the suit of his widow Jane.