• 10 PARISH CHURCH OF WEAVERHAM

that so little of the building was left standing when the church took its present form. The Ledger Book of Vale Royal throws a great deal of light on this period and should be read in conjunction with all attempts to study the church life of Weaverham. The many visits of the abbot and that of Bishop Robert dc Northburn in 1331 show among other things that the village was growing in importance and would need a large church,'and so we come gradually to the enlargement in the fifteenth century down to the building as wc see it to-day.

The exact date for this final enlargement is uncertain. Ormerod, and those who blindly accept his dictum, says it appears to have been either in the reign of Elizabeth or James I.

In the face of the evidence I have been able to bring forward from the old documents discovered by me there has been nothing more important than continuous repairs carried out since 1558, and I am sure if the church had been rebuilt in Elizabeth's reign it would not have needed repair in the next reign. In the Harlcian MS., in which the celebrated Randle Holme and his son and grandson give us some notes after visits to Weavcrham church, no mention at all is made by them of any rebuilding, but they give us some drawings of coats of arms recently placed in the windows of the Crowton chapel in 1533. The churchwardens' accounts which I found dating from 1630 carry 011 the story, one of the first items being of a meeting to view the repairs needed to the roofs and steeple.

In 1724. Isaac Johnson, " who professed bricklaying and masonry," tells what he saw being done by others and what he did himself in that year. Among other things he says he " widened the South Porch and Doorway, and cut a hole through the west face of the Tower to fix a finger to be put through to the new dial board of the clock then put up . . ." etc., ctc.

Some of the items in the churchwardens' accounts telling of the repairs are :—