PARISH CHURCH,VF WEAVERHAM ^yr.. 241

Wliat a day of jubilation when the bells returned and were re-hung one can gather from succeeding items in the records, too numerous to mention here, but showing how the church and its bells were bound up in the life of the parish. ^r

The bells were again re-hung in 1887 by Messrs. Taylor of Loughborough. In 1926 the batdements of the tower were rebuilt and the walls grouted and pointed, making the tower safe and fit to stand the storms of a few more centuries.

How it was used by the parishioners as a sort of outlet for their feelings may be gathered from the stories told by our grandparents of the celebrations on Nov. 5th, " the day of great dclivcrancc," or on the 29th of May, when great boughs of oak were actually hauled up to the top to decorate it in memory of "the King's Restoration."

Both at Christmas and the annual rushbearing feasts, the church was " garnished," for we have it recorded in 1725 :—

Paid Isaac Johnson for garnishing the Church o 1 3.

the parish clerk

As the freehold of die office of parish clerk is abolished at the death of the present holder, the new clerks only holding their office from year to year, I should like to insert here a list of those men who served their day and generation in that high and honourable calling, going back as far as I can trace their names :—

Thomas Lawrenson .. .. . .appointed about 1715 George Rathbonc .. .. .. appointed in 1739 Joseph Rigby James Johnson, Sexton Samuel Johnson, Clerk (1814) and Sexton James Johnson, Clerk and Sexton .. Samuel Johnson, Clerk and Sexton .. Thomas Youd, Clerk and Sexton Bayley Bcbbington, Clerk and Sexton Charles E. Bebbington, Clerk and Sexton (Deputy Clerk from 1885)