Blanche Parry

Sir Richard ap Owen, chaplain, vicar from 16th August 1434.

Dom. William London, a monk at Dore, celebrated High Mass in Bacton Church in 1435 using a chalice, worth £2–13s–4d (over £1,000 today), which he had lent to Harri Ddu ap Gruffudd, the Lord of Bacton and presumably the lay patron of the Church. The Abbot of Dore also lent Harri Ddu a pair of vestments, and a great brazen pot worth £3 (now over £1,000 today) probably for use in the adjacent Church ale house; ale was brewed on a grand scale for parish functions!

Sir John Snell, chaplain, vicar from 4th July 1453

The year that marked the end of the Hundred Years War between England and France. Two years later the first battle of the Wars of the Roses was fought between the claimants of York and Lancaster.

Sir John ap Harry was mentioned in 1499 with Henry Myles, Steward of Dore Abbey (Blanche Parry's father)

Henry Myles is known to have had a chaplain and it is probable that Sir John was not only this chaplain but also the vicar of Bacton. He was the clergyman Blanche knew as a child.

Sir Robert, rector, was mentioned in 1546 and 1553.

The 1546 Diocesan Visitation noted his house, termed a rectory, was in the hands of the Bishop. The churchyard was not enclosed, books were lacking but otherwise all is well. By the 1553 Visitation the rectory was in the hands of the King.

Subsequently Blanche Parry noted, in her November 1578 First Will, that the vicar of Bacton no longer had a house to live in because my nephew (actually great–nephew) Roland Vaughan and his wife (Elizabeth) did grant away the house wherein the vicar was accustomed to dwell. She requested that Lord Burghley should ensure that her great–nephew William Vaughan (who would have inherited Newcourt but died before his father) should provide a suitable house for the vicar. It is interesting that Blanche used the term ' vicar' which is what he had been when she was a child.

Revd. William Prosser, rector/vicar, 11th Feb. 1569 but living outside the diocese –died 1605.

His curates included Thomas Phelippes (1584), Charles Price (1586), Thomas Price (1589) and Thomas Barnesley (1601). The 1575 Visitation noted the church lacked some books. In the 1582 Diocesan Visitation the churchwardens, Lewis Griffith and Walter ap Howell, complained against their parson for not keeping of hospitality, saying they had no monthly sermons, nor had they had any quarter sermons for the last year, though they did have homilies read every Sunday and on Holy days. The 1584 Diocesan Visitation noted all well at Bacton, and so suggests William Vaughan had granted a house for the vicar's use before his death in 1584.

Later clergy were termed Reverend (Revd.). Their patrons included:

Robert Hopton, armiger, and Elizabeth his wife in 1569; Sir Bennett Hoskins bart. in 1680 and 1705; different Bishops of Hereford in 1691 and 1773; successive generations all named Sir Hungerford Hoskyns of Harewood bart. in 1723, 1778, 1802 and 1818; Francis Hamp esq. in 1835; Colonel Robert Bridges Bellers in 1884 and 1891; and also Mrs. M.F.E. Partridge.

Curates were employed when the incumbent was resident outside the parish or had another living.

The 1614 terrier described this vicar's house at Bacton, adjacent to the church, as the great house which stands within the church yard on the north side of the church ... which ... should be the Parsonage House(probably 118 Public House and Orchard on the 1839/1842 tithe map). The vicar required a garden, later called orchard, as his own–grown fruit and vegetables augmented his stipend and resources he obtained from the lesser tithes. In 1610 Roland Vaughan claimed, In His Booke, that the church was so ruinous that he had had to build a chapel for his workmen. In 1614 this was described as a little house called the Chapel within the Churchyard (tithe117 House and Garden). It may have been an ossuary, or charnel house. There was also a barn standing on the south side of the church yard of three bays belonging to the