• 10 PARISH CHURCH OF WEAVERHAM

This is dealt with at length in my paper on the subject, read before our Society in 1929.⁵ Further, the finding of two silver Roman coins in 1938 in the vicarage garden (as already mentioned) is an indication of Roman occupation on that site.

As there are no traces of a Norman church, it is quite likely this Saxon church stood until the building of the late medueval church, probably in the thirteenth or fourteenth century. Of this building we have a few fragments and traces here and there which give us an indication of their earlier origin, and certainly the portions of tracery which I have recovered from the vicarage garden show that the style of architecture was much more elaborate than that of the present church. The absence of any records in writing concerning the building and style of the church which followed the Saxon church is unfortunate, and it is scarcely safe to venture an opinion on the subject. It is only by reading its history, side by side with the history and growth of the parish and also by a very careful examination of the foundations and lower parts of the present building that I have been able to say with confidence what would be the shape this second building would take.

The names of the five townships all ending in the Saxon suffix " ton " show that these places were originally farmsteads cleared and enclosed from the forest, and therefore for many years after the Conquest would have only a very small number of inhabitants. With the coming of the Dones to Crowton and Cuddington, the Gcrards to Crewood and the Actons to Acton in the thirteenth century, these places grew and their respective lords would add to the church and provide accommodation for their tenantry. Thus the chapels of Crowton and Hcfferston would be added to the original structure, and so the church assumed the form I have shown in my plan. Whether it was thirteenth or early fourteenth century matters not. The pity is

• Summarized Transactions Lanes, and Ches. Ant. Soc., xlvi, 122-3.