THERE may have been, and was, we may feel assured, at a very early period, a church of some sort in Milton; on the same spot, too, whereon the present church stands. Since the village owed its name, and consequently its original formation, to the Anglo-Saxons, it is natural indeed to suppose that the due worship of God was not neglected by them on their conversion to Christianity. Besides, the establishment for secular canons at Horningsey, which must have been founded by the beginning of the ninth century, was sufficiently near to provoke to emulation such owners of the soil as had the means of thus benefiting in religious matters themselves and their dependents. Members of that establishment may even have been leaders in the movement, and by their assistance, no less than by their example, have contributed much towards promoting the spiritual good of the inhabitants of so inconsiderable a village, as Milton then was. Respecting the existence, however, of any such public building (which could hardly have been of any other materials than wood and thatch), we know nothing: we must content ourselves with conjecture. But, whatever was the case in those primitive times, we cannot avoid considering it certain, that the tenth century did not pass over witl1out the erection of such a church as has just been described, or possibly, of a more costly one. For at that period Brihtnoth, the first abbot of Ely, and the second founder of its monastery, an energetic and serious-minded man, had acquired, on behalf of himself and his Benedictine brethren, the whole of the parish, and we ought charitably to imagine them not to have been indifferent to the interests of religion.

Thus, a church of some kind or other having been erected, Brihtnoth must likewise have become the joint patron with his clergy of the living. Besides, the abbot and monks of Ely no doubt continued uninterruptedly to make presentations thereto until the latter half of the eleventh century, inasmuch as from Domesday Book we perceive the land with its rights to have been down to the Norman Conquest, and, it may be, a little later, in their hands. Edward the Confessor confirmed, we are told, the monastery at Ely in their
possessions and privileges at Milton in the county of Cambridge, and out of the Isle of Ely.

In due time, however, after 1066, matters changed, and very considerably for the worse spiritually as well as temporally. The abbot and his monks were ousted from this property, and compelled to give way both in the parish and
in the church to a man, whom among themselves they were naturally wont to believe, and whom one of their number rejoiced to have an opportunity of describing, as a monster of iniquity. Picot, the Sheriff of Cambridgeshire, being a Norman, and of the conquering race, of course carried every thing with a high hand, and, having his sovereign to back him, thought more of increasing his own possessions than of consulting the feelings and interests of those, who fell under his power. He may really have deserved the language of Thomas the monkish chronicler of Ely, strong as it is, and been in some way relatively to the monastery ‘leo famelicus, lupus oberrans, vulpes subdola, sus lutulenta,
canis impudens;’ still there seems to be as large a portion of abuse, as truth in the words. Without wishing to appear disposed to favour one, who, like his equals and contemporaries, shewed too much of the ‘animus Getulus’ in his dealings with the English, it ought to be mentioned to his advantage, that he built in 1092 the church of S. Giles in Cambridge, and endowed there a body of six canons regular with some church patronage, and with considerable revenues
issuing out of the various demesne lands attached to his barony of Bourne, which also included the parish of Middleton (Hist. of Waterbeach, p. 27. Queen Elizabeth, 17th June, 1560, granted to Bishop Heton all that her portion of tithes in Milton formerly belonging to the priory of Barnwell, worth £3. 6s. 8d. per annum. Ibid. p. 29). Still since he did this in gratitude to S. Giles, to whom he was assured and believed his wife’s recovery from a dangerous illness was expressly due, he may have acted from a superstitious, rather than from a proper religious, feeling.

In 1086 Picot, we are told, had succeeded the Abbot of Ely in the ownership of all the land in the parish: thus he likewise held, as a natural consequence, the advowson of the rectory. Notwithstanding, therefore, the unfavourable character so constantly attributed to him, he may (at all events through the instigation of his wife,) have attended in some degree to the spiritual interests of his newly-acquired people.

The chancel arch of the present church, from its circular shape, is Norman, but not late in that style. Surely, the building of which it has long been the only relic, owed its foundation to him. He died at the very beginning of the twelfth century, so that there is no improbability in supposing him to have ordered its erection: in fact, no good reason exists for assigning it to any one else.

The right to present to the rectory, as just remarked, followed according to custom the possession of the manor; consequently in the middle of the thirteenth century, when we next obtain some detinite knowledge about the affairs of Milton, this likewise must have passed with the manor from the sovereign to Eubulo de Montibus. Soon after 1253 it pertained to John de Somery, from whom it came by marriage to the family of Le Strange. We again read of it, 6 Ric. II. [1382], in which year Rogerus Lestrange de Knokyn in Shropshire (who had died 26th August,) et Alicia ejus uxor, are declared to have Middleton manerium et] advocacionem ecclesiæ (Calenel. Inquisit. Post Mortem, Vol. III. p. 50; White Kennet’s Parochial Antiquities, Vol. II. p. 165; Baker, MSS. Vol. xxvm. pp. 213, 214).

Some time between 1291 and 1348, probably about 1300, after the Le Strange family had become patrons of the advowson, a great change in the management of the spiritual affairs of the parish was introduced. For the rector of that day applied for, and obtained, permission from proper superior authority to appoint a vicar to officiate under him ; so that by this means two persons were instituted to the same church, and both, by reason of that act of institution, had cure of souls in Milton. In excuse for transactions of this kind it should be remarked, that the cure of souls was not necessarily connected anciently in the public mind with the profits of a benefice: so long as the duty was done, it mattered not who was the doer of it, the principal or his deputy. The rector was himself appointed by the lord of the manor, and he therefore henceforth put in a vicar or substitute to assist him in performing the duty, rather than to minister in his stead, to the people. Originally this vicar was little more than a stipendiary curate is now; his salary was uncertain, and he was removable at pleasure. At length 4 Hen. IV. [1402] this state of things was changed: for the future vicar was to have perpetual possession of his cure, was to be canonically instituted and inducted, as well as sufficiently endowed, and
thus our vicarages, in their present form, came into existence (Stephens’ Laws relating to the Clergy, Vol. II. p. 1371; Hook’s Church Dictionary) Of course, the natural effect in very many parishes of having
a vicar in addition to the rector, was that the rector by the mere force of custom at length considered himself entirely relieved from residence and from all spiritual charge. In fact, a mere sinecure, as regarded him, began to be created, an abuse which does not seem to have been originally contemplated. But such was not for a very long time the case at Milton. The rector and the vicar both lived here at the same time, and each in his own peculiar dwelling, whence
it was in reality benefited, so long as such a laudable practice was continued, by having two supervisors instead of one. Moreover, it was not an unusual circumstance for the rector to omit to appoint a vicar, and to take upon himself the oversight of his flock in a double capacity, working the parish like
other beneficed clergymen, and only calling in the assistance of a curate, when from ill health, or any similarly allowable cause, the presence of a fellow-labourer was rendered indispensable. The actual sinecure, therefore, as manifested by an endowed rector deeming himself free, notwithstanding his institution, from residence as well as duty, did not exist at Milton except in comparatively modern times, nor even then uninterruptedly, and in so small a parish could do little harm: the positive and unmitigated evil came when the vicar, also, as eventually happened, followed the example of the rector, and became himself equally non-resident, serving his cure from Cambridge. During more than live centuries the parish had thus two sets of clergymen officially connected more or less with it; in 1846, however, the rectory and the vicarage were consolidated (At visitations the rector is required to pay also the ancient fees which were wont to be demanded of the vicar) in obedience to a recent act of Parliament, and can never again be held by separate individuals.

Ecclesia de Middletone non appropriata : est ibi rector et vicarius (The archdeacon’s book mentions a few other parishes, which had both a rector and vicar: (Dry) Drayton, Barton, Orwell, Elm, Caxton, (Long) Stow, and Bukele (Brinckley?). Of (Cherry) Hinton it is said non appropriata, quare est ibi vicarius et rector; and certain larger payments than they otherwise would have been, are ascribed to Whittlesford (and Hampton) quia solebat habere vicarium, as well as a rector), et taxatur ad xv marcas : solvit pro synodalibus ij^s iiij^d: procurationibus xviij^d: denariis sancti Petri ij^s : ornamenta sunt hæc: duo missalia{-For an account of these service-books recourse must be had to
Maskell’s Mon. Rit. Eccles. Angl. Vol. I. or some similar work.-} sufficientia: iiij gradalia : (unum menubrum{-The menubrum, a word which only occurs this once in the archdeacon’s book, must be the manubrius of Du Cange, and, therefore, a thuribulum or vas in quo thus reponitur. The writers of that book, clerks though they may have been, were by no means particular as to
the gender, declension, or spelling, of their Latin words.-} cristallinum 🙂 duo troperia: j antiphonarium: ij legende, quarum j bona et alia in duobus
voluminibus: j manuale : turribulum bonum : tria paria vestimentorum cum pertinentiis (Videlicet, cum tunica, dalmatica, et capa chori) : j calix bonus et alius debilis: iij rochete: vij superpellicia: crismatorium bonum:
(ij candelabra ?): iij phiole: pixis eburnea (The pyx was of every kind of material, – even of silk.): ij cruces: cappa chori: ij frontalia: ij turribula: lanterna: j vexillum: velum templi (Occasionally it is styled velum quadragesimale, or simply velum. Every church must have had one. Hist. of Waterbeach, p. 41, n.): item unum vestimentum cum casula alba: stola: crux argentea: manipulum (Its other name was sudarium.) cum optimis paruris: tunica dalmatica et capa chori: et unus pannus de baldekyno (Bawdkyn or cloth of Bawdkyn was one of the richest and most precious species of stuffs, being composed of silk interwoven with threads of gold in a most sumptuous manner. The name came from the Persian city Baldac, or Babylon, whence it is reported to have hem introduced into these western regions) de dono domini Radulphi rectoris.’

The manuscript, from which the foregoing account has been extracted, and which still exists in the library of Caius College, is of great value in relation to everything, that can come within the designation of ancient church furniture, and even as to some other parochial matters. It is unquestionably connected, as regards the writing, only with the fourteenth century, and would seem to have been at first designed to record the results of some visitations of Ralph de Fotheringay, Archdeacon of Ely from 1292 to his death in 1316. Three of his visitations are distinctly referred to, viz. in 1305, 1309, and 1311. The earliest date mentioned in the course of the numerous entries is 1304; the latest 1386. The year 1278 does indeed occur in the case of Wilburton, a parish of which the archdeacon had the great tithes, but the account of the furniture belonging to that parish was evidently inserted, as we may judge from the mere wording, in order to supply an omission – ‘Ornamenta inventa in eadem (ecclesia) in festo sancti Michaelis anno domini m.cc.lxxviij sunt hec.’ Moreover, Ralph de Walpole, who became bishop of Norwich in 1288, is described as lately archdeacon.

The writing is of several different periods, which are easily distinguishable from one another; but the least ancient, for a reason just given, is unable to be pronounced not to be ‘later than 1349.’ The year to be assigned as the commencement of the manuscript must be quite at the beginning of the fourteenth century. For under Wisbech we find two entries, of which the second and later one begins thus: ‘Item, in visitatione Magistri R. de ffodr. Archidiaconi Elyensis anno domini m.ccc^oxj.’ Probably we have in the earliest
portions of the manuscript certain notices of church furniture, &c. which were the result of his visitation in 1309. This was not, as we know, actually his first visitation, but it may have been the first whose results were carefully and diligently recorded.

The suppression of altars throughout the diocese of Ely took place 7th December, 1550, toward the end of the episcopate of Bishop Goodrich. On that day a general assembly of the rectors, vicars, curates, and churchwardens was held in the church belonging to the parish of the Holy Trinity, Cambridge, when a sermon was preached by Matthew Parker, at that time rector of Landbeach, and the holy scripture expounded in English. Afterwards Edward Leedys, Bishop
Goodrich’s commissary, and Vicar General (Cooper’s Athenæ Cantab.), commanded that all altars existing in the various churches and chapels of the several deaneries within the diocese of Ely should be destroyed and thrown down by the approaching festival of Christmas.

Copy of a Record in the Public Record Office, entitled ‘Church Goods, Cambridge, tempore Edw. VI. Exchequer, Court of Augmentations.’ Miscellaneous Books, Vol. 495.

Mylton.	This is a trewe and perfect Inventorie indented made and taken the iiijth day of August Anno Regni Regis E. vj. sexto [1552] by us Richarde Wylkes Clerke Henry Gooderyche and Thomas Rudston Esquyres (History of Waterbeach, pp. 42, 43, notes) commyssioners emongest others assigned for the surveye and vieu of all manner of goodes, plate, jewelles, belles, and orniamentes as yet be remayninge forthecornynge and belonging to ye paroche Churche there, as hereafter foloweth.
Plate.	Fyrst there is one Chalyce of Sylver poids xxti ounces.
Ornamts.	Item, one vestemt deacon and subdeacon of blewe sylke, one olde Cope of redde sylke wth ye deacon and subdeacon of ye same sylke, one vestemt of blacke saye, one other vestemt of whight chamlett.
Belles.	Item, in ye steple there iij Belles, one sanctus bell (This seems to have been the usual number of bells. Waterbeach, Landbeach, and Horningsey, had the same. For sanctus bell see Hist. of Landbeach, p. 76, n.-) All which parcelles above wrytton be delyvered and comytted by us the saide Commyssioners unto ye salve kepynge of Henry Harte Richarde Foote and John Lawrence parisheoners there, to be att all tymes forthcomynge to be answered: Except and reserved and the saide chalyce, and the saide cope of redde sylke wth ye vestemt of blewe sylke, delyvered to John Fytzsone (Fyson?) and Richarde Barker Churchwardens there for thonlie mayntenaunce of dyvyne servyce in ye saide paroche churche.HENRY GODERICK. RIC. WILKES. THOMAS RUDSTONE THOMAS HYSSAM Vicar. RICHARD BARKER. JOHN FYTZONE × his mark.

The wills made early in the sixteenth century by inhabitants of Milton are extremely useful in affording us glimpses of the state of the church, and church matters, at that period. Ten of them will be given hereafter.

Two gilds were held in the church, the gild of All Hallows or All Saints, and the gild of S. Katerine (Hist. of Waterbeach, p. 40). The high altar is mentioned, and the rood loft: bequests are likewise left to the Sepulchre light{-Hist. of Waterbeach, pp. 60, 61. Wardens of the Sepulchre light, and indeed of every light appropriated to a special purpose, were wont at one time at least to be annually elected, as well as wardens of the church. Cooper’s
Memorials of Cambridge, Vol. III. p. 370, n. In the East Anglian, Vol. III. p. 79, mention is made, under the date 1537, of the election of an Alderwoman, and Warden of the Lady’s light.-}, and to the torches required for processions. The church was then thatched with reeds, as, most probably, were the great majority of country churches, and other large buildings, and as indeed some still are. The use of tiles was clearly uncommon, from the circumstance of a tenement given by Rose Cokk to her husband being called for distinction’s sake the tiled house. ‘Our lady’s chapel’ occurs in John Nicholson’s will, who desires his executors to glaze one window therein. Was the manor chapel intended? That belonged of right to a particular family, and we might suppose that no one, except the lord would take upon himself to offer, or would be allowed, to do any thing to it either by way of reparation or improvement. But on the other hand in 1685 the lord’s tenants were ordered by ecclesiastical authority to repair that chapel, and consequently John Nicholson’s will may well be considered to refer to it, though surely his direction could not be carried out unless with the lord’s sanction.

The right of presenting to the rectory of Milton had always been hitherto in the lord of the manor ; at length, some time during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and, possibly, towards the very end of it, this right got separated from the manor, though under what circumstances does not appear (There may exist documents in the treasury of King’s College, which can explain it). It became vested in the Reverend Dr Goade, provost of King’s College, who may have presented himself somewhere about the year 1600. Dr Goade died in 1610, and left the advowson first to the members of his family in succession, and then
to his college. The following extract from his will, dated 9 January 1608-9, is printed on the authority of Baker:-

‘I appoint my second son Thomas y^e rectory of Milton, he to be thereunto presented by my eldest son Matthew in whom the interest of the parsonage is of trust. And upon vacation of the same rectory by death or otherwise from time to time, I will that y^e said presentation shall be to such other of my sons successively as shall be capable thereof. And upon default of any such my sons, then my son Matthew, his heirs or executors, shall present such capable person to the said rectory, being provost, or then fellow, of the said King’s College, and a minister, as he or they shall best like of pro una vice tantum. And afterwards I give the said patronage to the said King’s College perpetuis futuris temporibus to be conveied by good assurance in Lawe to the provost and schollars and their successors from my said son Matthew, his heirs or executors.’

On the restoration of Charles II. the rectory was for that turn in the patronage of the crown, wherefore Dr Whichcote, as will be mentioned more particularly hereafter, was then obliged to vacate the preferment, which he had already held for about nine years in order that the crown might exercise the privilege given to it by law. ‘For the king has not only the right of presenting to churches as supreme patron, which lapse to him during his own reign, but also such as may have lapsed to any of his predecessors, who have taken no advantage therefrom. When lapse incurs to the king, it cannot be taken away by the patron or the ordinary (Stephens’ Laws relating to the Clergy, Vol. I. p. 593).’

The vicar in later times went occasionally by the name of sequestrator, as indeed he actually was, and for a reason which admits of an easy explanation. ‘Sometimes a benefice is kept under sequestration for many years together, or wholly; namely, when it is of so small value, that no clergyman fit to serve
the cure will be at the charge of taking it by institution (Stephens’ Laws relating to the Clergy, Vol. II. p. 1246; Memorials of Cambridge, Vol. III. p. 372, n.).’

Something must now be said respecting the annual value of the rectory and vicarage. And first of the rectory. The Rotuli Hundredorum is the earliest document to which any reference is possible, but they do not state anything definite as to the income of the rector: they merely record the fact
that an endowment of land had been made to him by the founders of the church, whoever are meant by the expression. These thirty acres, with apparently a house for the tenant were at that time in the hands of a man named Alan Textor, or Alan the weaver. If, however, we go to the Taxatio Ecclesiastica, which was drawn up in 1291, twelve years later, we find the following passage (Taxatio Ecclesiastica (ed. 1802), p. 266):

	£.	s.	d.
Ecclia. de Middelton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	15	6	8
Porcio Prioris de Bernewell in eadem . .	3	6	8

The sum last named would seem to represent the worth of the tithes arising from his demesne land at Milton, which we have seen Pigot, who founded the abbey subsequently transferred from Cambridge to Barnwell, assigned to the head of
his religious establishment there towards its support. We may now come to the King’s Book, from which we learn that in 1535 the rectory was set at £4. 6s. 11d. Baker tells us that its annual value was £100, and in Adam Elliott’s days it was returned at £120. Whichcote in 1656 recorded that neither the rector nor the vicar paid firstfruits, but that they both paid tenths.

The vicar is not mentioned even in the later of the two documents belonging to the thirteenth century quoted above. We first read about him in relation to temporal affairs in the book containing the transactions of the manor of Waterbeach cum Denney. There the vicar of Milton is recorded to have been presented and fined no less than five times between 2 and 19 Edw. IV. [1462-1479] for a variety of offences – for putting his cattle in the common of the mannor, where he hath no common – for trespassing with his beastes in fladis
domine et tenentium – for not mending and defending the hallowe from water – for digginge xvj^m turffes in the marshes beyonde his common contrary to the by lawe, and a precept to seize them to the ladies (The abbess of Denney) use as forfeited – for having frequently transgressed within the demesne.

The same priest did not hold the vicarage during the whole of these eighteen years, consequently we learn from this detail of offences something respecting their being constant residents in the parish, and something too, as to the
mode of improving their income, which they were obliged to adopt. The King’s Book sets the vicarage at £4. 16s. 0½d. When Edward Johnson was vicar, the value of his living was considered by the officials of the earl of Manchester to be £18 per annum. Baker placed it at £25, whilst in Elliott’s time it was thought to be worth only £15. It is singular that in 1535 the vicarage should have been valued at a higher sum
than the rectory. There had been from 1699 (the first year of its existence) a land tax of £4 on the vicarage. This was taken off, from and after 29th of September 1819, by duly appointed commissioners under the provisions of an Act of Parliament 57 Geo. III. cap. 100. About 1776, the sum of £4OO was granted to the vicar by the governors of Queen Anne’s bounty: when Mr Chapman became rector, he declined the receipt of the dividends accruing therefrom, and caused the grant to be cancelled.

Milton is in the deanery of Chesterton, and Archdeaconry of Ely. The church of Milton, like that of the contiguous parishes of Landbeach, Cottenham, and Rampton, is dedicated to All Saints. As regards the majority of the churches of
Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely, the remark seems worth making, that 42 are dedicated to S. Mary, 24 to All Saints, 20 to S. Andrew (S. Andrew was especially honoured in and around Cambridge, one third of the churches within a range of five miles being dedicated to him), 16 to S. Peter, and 8 to the Holy Trinity. Milton church has a nave, a chancel, and a south porch, covered with tiles: a west tower, and a north and south aisle covered with lead; and a vestry covered with slates. At the beginning of the sixteenth century it was all thatched with reeds. There is a pen-and-ink view of the south side of the
church in Cole, to which is attached the date 24th July, 1744. He speaks of the church generally as ‘an awkward kind of church, small lowe something dark and not very neate:’ moreover, it must, from his reference which is given below,
have been uncomfortably damp (Nash’s History of Worcestershire, Vol, I. p. 4).

The tower is Later Decorated, and wanting in height. It has a buttress of two stages at its south-west and north-west corners, and also, two other buttresses at its north and south sides, which are the latest as well as the highest, and of three stages each. On the south face is a human head carved in stone: it is out of its proper position, having been probably the termination to a hood-mould, and possibly, that over the East window. It does not now quite fulfil the object of him who put it where it is, which must have been ornamentation rather than preservation, from its being uncomfortably and unnecessarily elevated. The upper part of the tower, or the steeple, with its plain battlemented parapet, has been super-added at two different times. The steeple was, and still continues to be, regularly fitted up internally as a pigeon-house by means of square holes cut in the four walls for the pigeons to build in. Such a beneficial appropriation of it, however, must be modern, and solely connected with the time, happily now passed by, and never again to recur, when the rectory had become in name and reality a sinecure. The tower has a clock on its west face, put up in 1848 at an expense of £53. Immediately beneath it is what seems to be a portion of a gurgoyle. The money for the clock came chiefly from the directors of the Great Eastern Railway, as
compensation for parish-land required by them for their works. A century and a half before a clock had existed on the tower. In the steeple are three bells. The inscriptions on the bells, beginning with the treble, are as follows : 1. Miles Graye made me 1665: 2. Thomas Newman{-Thomas Newman was a Norwich bell-founder. The inscription on the tenor bell at Kersey, near Hadleigh, in Suffolk, tells us where the foundry of the Grayes was, about which some doubt existed:- Samuel Sampson, churchwarden, I say,
Caused me to be made by Colchester Graye. 1638.-} made me 1717: 3. Non clamor sed amor cantat in aure Dei, 1621. This last bell, though bearing no maker’s name, has been pronounced by competent authority to be the work of Tobie Norris of Stamford. The tower-arch, which until lately was blocked up with the usual singing gallery, is now entirely open, except that a small barrel-organ, standing on the floor, occupies some of the lower portion of it. Over the arch towards the nave are the words ‘Praise the Lord.’

The nave is Early Decorated, and, like the naves at Hockington and Horningsey, has no clear-story windows, small churches in old times rarely possessing any. Two windows indeed of three lights each are above the south arcade; these could not however have formed part of the first plan, and must have been inserted long afterwards, perhaps late in the sixteenth century, or even subsequently,
to remedy in some measure the too great darkness of that part of the church. Cole’s sketch has them.

The font, ‘a rude block,’ and old, is large and octagonal, with a carved wooden cover (The font used to be kept locked, as ordered in 1236 by Edmund, Archbishop of Canterbury. ‘This was done for fear of sorcery, though the manner of committing the offence does not appear.’ Hook’s Archbishops of Canterbury, Vol. III. p. 182; Hist. of Landbeach, p. 75, n) of the Jacobean period. Similar covers are very common, and afford, it is said, striking proofs of ‘the temporary revival of church principles during that era.’ The font may be coeval with the nave: it stood in 1744 against the second pillar of the north aisle, but is now placed in the centre of the church, nearly opposite the entrance door. Fonts, since the introduction of the pointed style of architecture, are commonly found in England, as at Milton, of an octagonal shape, because the number eight was considered to symbolize regeneration. This notion is very ancient. The words even of an early Christian poet are: ‘octagonus fons est;’ the reason assigned for it being, that as the old creation was completed in seven days, so eight, the next number in the series, rightly stands for our new creation in Christ Jesus:

‘Hoc numero decuit sacri Baptismatis aulam Surgere.’

The pillars, capitals and arches of both arcades are good, but they extend only two thirds of the way down the nave from the east. On the south of the chancel arch is what must have been a squint, or hagioscope, and designed for the
benefit of those, who worshipped in the manor chapel. The nave, on the outside, retains its original pitch, and has at the east a portion probably of the stump of a stone cross: it was cieled, on account of the coldness of the church, by Mr Knight when rector. The woodwork of the roof belongs, like the cover of the font, to the early part of seventeenth century. The windows towards the west end of the nave are of four lights, and, being exactly similar to them, may have been put in at the same time with those above the arcade on the south (Thomas Campion by his will dated in 1516 gives a legacy of xx^s. to the making of a window on the south side of the church; whilst John Nicholson in 1521 desires two windows to be glazed after the proportion of the new window. See their wills). The pulpit and reading-desk were introduced at the expense of the present rector: the lectern was an Easter offering made in 1865 by the Reverend Dr Giles, the present owner and occupant of the manor house with its grounds. Over the north arcade has been painted ‘God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in
truth:’ over the south arcade ‘The Lord is in His holy temple, let all the earth keep silence before Him.’

The north aisle, containing only three bays, the third or westernmost being half the width of the two others, was rebuilt in 1864 through the exertions of the Rev. John Chapman. The whole interior of the church was reseated and rearranged at the same time, a sum of £53O having been raised for all the above purposes by means of the contributions of himself and his friends. This aisle had been taken down by faculty nearly a century ago, in consequence of
its very dilapidated condition, the space between the pillars blocked up, and two windows inserted, which by no pretence could be called ornamental. Cole records that he glazed these new windows, and put in a great deal of painted glass, viz. a crucifix: S. Paul with Ananias and Sapphira; and the arms of some lords of the manor.

‘Thursday, Sep. 2, 1779. The north aisle being in danger of falling, at the east end of which is my pew [it took up all tl1e east end], the parish consented to pull it down: Mr Masters, rector of Landbeach [and also vicar
of Waterbeach] Deputy Chancellor, having got leave of the bishop, they began to pull it down.’ The faculty cost £8. 0s. 3d. Cole has some lengthy remarks about the disposition and conduct of the rector, Mr Knight, on this occasion (Vol. VI. pp. viii. and xviii. fol. 242), whom among other epithets he calls a ‘furious madman.’ They were not worth making even if true, but the antiquary was far from being a person on whom we; can depend in his estimate of others with unhesitating confidence. It would have been well for him had he, whilst writing designedly for the instruction of posterity, called to mind that posthumous slander tells much more? to the detriment of him who thus perpetuates, if he does not invent it, than of him who is sought to be injured thereby.

The north aisle is now rebuilt so as in plan and size to resemble the south aisle, which, we may feel sure, it did accurately resemble from the first. Its extent is small, still it must rather be considered an aisle than a chapel, and it was always so styled: a chantry it could not have been. A side chapel occupied the east end according to the usual custom in parish churches, and as we know to have been the case in the south aisle. Just below the tracery of
its east window are two coats of arms, both of Queen Elizabeth : they came from one of the side chapels in the chapel of King’s College. A third piece of painted glass, much more modern and due, as Cole tells us, to himself, represents the death of Ananias and Sapphira. There are besides two round pieces of glass 9 in. in diameter, bearing figures of St Margaret and St Catharine, also a quarry like the one engraved in Franks’ Quarries, pl. 35. On the north wall is a tablet ‘In memory of Isaac Marsh, who died the 5th of March 1837, aged 65 years.’

The south aisle, like the nave, is Early Decorated work. Of the windows, which as well as the roof were repaired in 1855 at the expense of John Percy Baumgartner, Esq., the owner of the Manor, that to the east is, as usual, the finest, from having had an altar beneath it. The manor chapel, a portion of a more ancient church, with its chaplain, are mentioned so early as 1279, and must then have been in existence for some time, whether we apply the words on p. 18 ‘whereof there is no memory’ to the bestowing of the gift there mentioned, or to the foundation itself of the building (We cannot tell whether by founder is meant he who originally built the church in Norman times, or he who substantially restored, if he did not actually rebuild, it in the thirteenth century). That chapel, however, as at present existing, and called
until very recent times L’Estrange’s chapel, did not include the whole of what is now thought to belong to the lord of the manor, namely, two out of the three bays of the aisle. Cole says of it in_1744: ‘Above half of the south aisle is
divided from the rest by a screen, which is stalled round for a private chapel or oratory. On the north side, near the old altar, stands a very old altar tomb of [Purbeck] marble with nothing on it, as does another on the opposite side against the south wall: a little above the piscina is an awkward kind of mural monument of stone, and in it a brass plate.’ This was the memorial of the Harris family. Blomefield mentions ‘a very ancient altar tomb’ in the south aisle, ‘with the circumscription lost,’ and says (Collectanea, p. 175) by the arms of Le Strange in the east window, and its being called Strange’s chapel, I make no doubt but that one of that ancient family is interred beneath it.’ The flooring of the whole chapel, according to the present notion of its extent, has been designedly raised about seven inches. It may have been done by Mr Knight, and like the second raising under part of the seats in order to give greater height to the vault beneath.

At the east end of this aisle is an aumbry without its door; a bracket, which must have served to support some figure; a niche, coloured green on the inside, which once had a statue (Of the Virgin Mary?) within it: also, a piscina with its shelf, and one plain water-drain. The niche, having been plastered over,
long continued in that state undisturbed. At length it was opened by the vicar, Mr Champneys, and found to contain certain small images. These had doubtless formed groups of figures, relics of the Roman Catholic mode of worship, and had been concealed there clearly in the sixteenth century by the pious care of some one, who did not wish them, according to his notions, to be desecrated, and who, therefore, provided for them, as he hoped (nor was he wholly disappointed), a sure hiding place. The concealment may, however, have had a different object. A report respecting the state of the diocese of Chichester,
dated December, 1569 (Froude’s Hist. of England, Vol. IX. p. 506.), says, — ‘They have yet in the diocese in many places thereof images hidden and other Popish ornaments ready to set up the mass again within 24 hours warning.’ It is much to be regretted, that no care was taken, on their discovery, to keep together those images, and so to preserve them, as to render them, if not, honoured, at least an interesting memorial of former religious notions and customs, particularly, since they were declared to be valuable. not only for their antiquity, but for their workmanship. They are now completely dispersed, and, possibly, to a great extent destroyed (At Blunham, in Bedfordshire, (of which parish the writer was once curate,) something similar occurred in 1849. In a cavity just below the east window of the church on the outside a collection of small figures, partially mutilated, was accidentally found. These have been rearranged in their proper groups, and are exposed to view in a glass case at the rectory).

The windows of this aisle contain a small portion of painted glass, of which some is old. The ornamental glazing quarries, though late, form the most interesting part of it. There are two quarries of a very large size, and six of the ordinary size; the two large ones, bearing a honeysuckle and
a rose, have been engraved (Franks’ Ornamental Glazing Quarries, p. 14, and Plates 68, 74). Of the other six, four have a large rose on each, the remaining two a stag. In the tracery of the east window are also three coats of arms, one with twenty-two quarterings, the first being that borne anciently
by Baron Maltravers, a second with six quarterings, the arms of queen Margaret of Anjou, the foundress of Queens’ College, and a third, argent, three lioncels rampant, regardant, gules, with a bordure gobonated. Cole does not mention these arms, nor are they claimed in any way by the present owner of the manor. They would seem therefore to have been put in, and probably by his ancestor Mr Knight, simply as ornaments. On the other hand Cole does say ‘On the east window are – gules, two lions passant, argent, for Le Strange (For some remarks concerning the arms borne by several members of this family see Dugdale’s Ancient Use of Bearing Arms, p. 53). Or, a cross, gules. Gules, a chevron between three lioncels rampant, argent, paled with, gules, a chevron, ermine, between three garbes, argent, for Goade. Also, party per pale three tygers’ heads erased counterchanged.’

On. a brass tablet now in the east wall we have the following inscription: ‘Here lieth the body of John Harris Gent. sonne of William Harris Esquier borne the 25 of June 1609 interred the 18 of October 1659. And also the bodies of William, James, George, Michale, Briget, Anne, and Briget the younger, sonnes and daughters of the said John Harrisn and Martha his wife, daughter of Thomas Tempest of Whaddon Esquier, she had living then, when she erected this, 3 sonnes and 7 daughters. A^o.D^o. 1660.’ At the top of the tablet are the father with his three sons, and the mother with her two daughters. The arms are, sable, 3 crescents 2, 1, argent, impaling Tempest, argent, a bend engrailed between six martlets, sable.

In the pavement is a stone slab, on which we read,

‘Here lieth the body of William Kettle, who dyed the 30th day of June 1700 in the 69 year of his age. Catherine his wife died 20 August 1727 aged 86 years.’

At the northcorner of the south aisle is a monument with this inscription:

‘Sacred to the memory of George Nichols Esq. of Conington House Cambridgeshire. ob. April 15. 1812. Æt. 67. Also, of Philippa, his widow, ob. October 9. 1837. Æt. 86. And of Philippa, their beloved and only child, ob. June 21.
1795. Æt. 15. Also, of two sisters of Mrs Nichols, Jane, widow of the Rev^d. Rich^d. Fayerman, Rector of Oby, Norfolk, ob. October 16, 1821, Æt. 72. And Anne Spelman, June 30, 1835, Et. 78. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. 1 Cor. 15. 26.’

In the south aisle are four mural monuments. The first bears the following inscription:

In a vault beneath are deposited
In stedfast hope of a joyful resurrection
The Remains of the Reverend Samuel Knight, M.A.
Only son of the Reverend Samuel Knight, D.D. formerly Prebendary of Ely.
He departed this life on the VI^th day of January MDCCXC.
In the LXXII^d year of his age.
His only son erects this in memory of the best of Fathers.
Here also rest the Remains of Sarah Spelman
Eldest sister of Elizabeth wife of Samuel Knight Esq^re.
Who departed this life on the VI^th day of September MDCCCVI.
In the LXI^st year of her age.
She died in a moment, in a moment she thought not of
yet not unprepared.
A Reader be thou likewise ready.

He was fellow of Trinity College, and BA. 1738-9, M.A. 1742.

The second monument consists of a bas-relief by Flaxman, beneath which is the following inscription:

Sacred to the memory of
Elizabeth
Wife of Samuel Knight Esq. of this place
Who after a few hours’ illness only
Exchanged this life for a better on the 17^th of June 1800
In the 39^th year of her age.
Of women O thou loveliest and thou best!
Enter, Eliza, on thy promised rest,
(Mysterious proof of heaven’s transcendant love)
All but translated to the realms above!
Thy husband pardon for his grief implores,
He weeps in frailty, but in faith adores.
The christian feels thy gain, but must bemoan
As man his children’s loss; – yet more his own,
Bright excellence! With every virtue fraught!
Such may we be ! By thy example taught;
Pure in the eye of heaven, like thee appear
Should we this hour Death’s awful summons hear;
Like thee all other confidence disown,
And looking to the cross of Christ alone,
In meekness tread the path thy steps have trod,
And find, witl1 thee,acceptance from our God!

At the head of the monument above the figures:

Then
Shall the good be received
into life everlasting.

The bas-relief is described and criticised in the following extract from G. F. Teniswood, Memorials of Flaxman (Art Journal, 1868, p. 3):

‘Prominent among the list of works exhibiting the devotional feeling and spirituality of form exemplifying the genius of Flaxman, is that erected to Mrs Knight, in Milton Church, near Cambridge. Here…the spirit of the deceased, invested with the form of humanity, is rising from the tomb, and conducted heavenward by an angelic visitant. The conception is one he has frequently adopted, as embodying the highest aspirations of Christian belief. For the purpose of such memorials it would be difficult to select an idea more in general keeping with the feeling prompting them, or better calculated to assist tlreteachings they enunciate in the mute, yet speaking, marble. The figure here seen as rising from the tomb is rather the embodiment of spirit than the representation of substance, and whether viewed as a whole or in parts, presents the most ideal refinement. Though with the foot yet touching the earth, the action of rising to soar away is beautifully suggested, to which effect the lines of the drapery, by exhibiting rather than concealing the forms beneath, largely contribute. In the church at Croydon, lamentably destroyed by fire some months past, was a replica of this monument, though differing in one respect. To the upper figure Flaxman had given wings, which, while marking its
character and intention in the group, distinguished it from the individuality suggested by the lower form. Such a modification of the work was probably suggested to him, as many friends of the deceased lady whose monument is at
Milton felt the expression of the conception would have been more vividly apparent had the upper figure been so treated. Such a supposition is favoured by the relative date of the two works, that at Milton having been erected
about 1802, the group at Croydon not being placed till about 1810.’

The third monument in the south aisle bears the following inscription:

Samuel Knight
Born July XI^th MDCCLIV
Died June VII^th MDCCCXXXV

My children, friends, and thou beloved wife,
Dear pious partner of my closing life!
Watching (as duty prompts) my parting breath –
Mourn not as void of hope a Christian’s death –
Control the mournful – the embittered sigh:
On Christ, my God and Saviour I rely;
Christ still the same (what though I’ve lived to see
Tow’rds Rome’s fell power a sad apostacy)
Vile as I am, wash’d in his blood, I know;
My scarlet sins are made as white as snow –
“Increase my faith, I prayed; repentance give.
“And in thy rest, O Lord, my soul shall live:
“Celestial gift! thy Holy Spirit send
“To lead each thought to good, from ill defend;
“Till I, blest inmate of thy pure abode,
“Through all eternity behold my God.”

Frances Knight, widow of the above
Died Dec. 10 A.D. 1844.
God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish
But have everlasting life.
St John iii. 16.

He was of Trinity College, B.A. 1776 and MA. 1779.

The foregoing monuments are on the south wall, the fourth is at the west end of the aisle. It is by Chantrey, and bears the following inscription:

Sacred to the memory of
Samuel Knight, Jun^r.
Only son of Samuel Knight, Esq., of Milton
Who peacefully departed this life
On the 2^nd day of June, 1829 in the 39^th year of his age
Trusting in the tender mercies of his God,
Through the mediation of his Redeemer –
How dearly loved, how deeply mourned,
By her who consecrates this stone can be known only to Him
Unto whom all hearts are open.

In that part of the south aisle, which extends the width of the third arch, and which until of late years had been for some time separated from the rest, on the north and east sides, by a lath and plaster partition, in order to serve for a porch, a raised crossed slab now lies: it was found in 1864 in the nave, and iscin beautiful preservation. Like the slabs, which may be seen in the churches of Hockington, Horningsey, and Landbeach, it has near the middle of the shaft of the cross that most puzzling ornament, about which so many unsatisfactory conjectures have been offered. All these slabs are referred to the thirteenth century (Cutts’ Sepulchral Slabs and Crosses, p. 44). The small west window of the aisle is original, and is now filled with painted
glass by W. H. Constable representing Jacob’s dream, with the passage from Scripture, ‘This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of Heaven.’ Over the entrance door hang the royal arms. These originally belonged to Landbeach Church, but in 1826 were transferred to Milton, as not being any longer required there (History of Landbeach, p. 63).

The chancel, contrary to the usual custom, is on the same level as the nave: with the exception of the south wall it was entirely rebuilt in 1847 at the expense of the rector. The part he pulled down may have been, and most probably
was, chiefly Early English work; an Early English chancel having replaced the Norman apse, which was the case in so many other churches. A few of the old stones must have been used again in the rebuilding of the east end, and especially the bottom stone of the coping of the gable on both sides, which is apparently of the Early English style of architecture, and may thus once more occupy its proper place (Similar stones were once at the east end of Waterbeach church, but these were not restored on the rebuilding of the chance]. Glossary of Architecture, Vol. I. p. 440, edit. 1850). At the termination of the chancel on the outside is a modern ornamental stone cross.

The chancel arch is Norman with plain capitals, being the only portion still remaining of the church, to which it at first belonged. Over it towards the nave is: ‘I will wash my hands in innocency, O Lord, and so will I go to Thine altar.’ The king’s arms and the ten commandments were there in 1744. The modern east window of four lights is Decorated; it was the gift of the patrons of the advowson, and has its tracery filled with painted glass at the expense of Mr Chapman. The previous window was, of course, in its earliest state, that inserted by an ancient rector, John Scot, who had been presented to the living in 1349. A brass underneath it in the pavement once recorded the fact. We may suppose that it was then said of the Early English chancel, as, forty years
before, it had been said of the same style of chancel with its narrow windows at Horningsey: ‘nec est ibi lumen competens,’ and that this led to the substitution. The window on the north, as well as that on the south, side of the chancel is Late Perpendicular: the painted glass of the latter was put in a few years ago, and represents under three aspects, each with a distinct reference to the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, the marriage supper at Cana of Galilee. The new open roof is a copy from the roof of the Roman Catholic chapel at Cambridge, which was made after a design by the late Mr Pugin.

On the south side of the chancel is an aumbry. The piscina (When the church at Horningsey was restored in 1865 two piscinas were discovered, one which belonged to the roodloft, and another almost immediately beneath it, the former square and about the year 1400, the latter trefoiled and a century perhaps, earlier), of which each compartment has a water-drain, is partially a restoration, though, of course, in all respects an accurate resemblance of what previously existed. This piscina, therefore, bears another testimony to an Early
English chancel; subsequent to the thirteenth century indeed it could not well be from the occurrence even of its double water-drain, which can hardly be found after that period, from being thenceforward no longer necessary. The beautiful cinque-foiled sedilia are Late Perpendicular, which is shown by the presence of the peculiar ornamental cusping called double feathering, whose introduction is to be referred to the reign of Hen. VII. Over them are the words: ‘Whoso eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood, hath eternal life.’ Along the west side of the chancel, and somewhat blocking up the entrance to it, are four oaken stalls, old and good, having, it is said, below the misereres the arms of the see of Ely; as they are evidently not in their first position, they
may be the stalls to which Cole alluded, and which he says were arranged to the north and south of the chancel. There is likewise some carved work in oak of later date, as well as some uncarved oak, all of which came from the hall of the
previous rectory house. The Communion Table has above it the sentence, ‘Do this in remembrance of Me.’ In 1744 the Table was on one step only, (now it is on two), and not{-This we may imagine was the usual state of the tables throughout
the kingdom in the eighteenth century; for the Spectator in 1711 says of Sir Roger de Coverley – ‘he has railed in the Communion Table at his own expense.’ No. 112.-} railed in. The rails had been taken away about a century before by order of the House of Commons. The present rails belonged at first to King’s College Chapel. Though far from modern, they yet are not at all after the pattern enjoined by Archbishop Land, whose Injunctions required them to be
‘neere one yarde in height, and so thick with pillars, that dogges might not get in (History of Landbeach, p. 93, n. The East Anglian, p. 192, n).’ Cole says about them: ‘In 1774 I spoke to the Provost, and told him, that he could not dispose of part of the old altar piece at King’s College, which was lately taken down for a new one, [better] than to give it to this dirty church of their patronage, and where his namesake, William Cooke, was interred. He went into the church, and said it was so squalid, that unless the parish would do somewhat, the altar part would make it look worse. However,
part of the old rails were sent, and are now [1779] put up.’

To the north of the space set apart for the Communion Table is a good late brass, at present in the pavement, but which used to form the top of a high or altar tomb, of which Cole has a drawing. This brass comprises the effigies of the judge and his wife with scrolls above their heads, two groups of children, (two sons beneath the father, three daughters beneath the mother), a large plate with arms, helmet, and crest and mantling, and an inverted inscription
below the two groups of children; the whole being surrounded by a border-legend with evangelistic emblems at the corners. The judge wears his robes over his ordinary civic attire; the lady the loose dress with puffed and slashed sleeves of the time of Queen Mary. The arms are: Per pale, argent and sable, 3 wolves’ heads erased, counterchanged: crest, a wolf’s head erased, per pale, argent and sable. The marginal inscription is as follows: ‘Orate pro anima Gulielmi Coke,
armigeri, unius Justiciariorum Domini Regis de Communi Banco, qui obiit vicesimo quinto die Augusti, Anno Domini Millesimo quingentesimo tercio, et pro bono statu Alicie Uxoris ejus, que monumentum fieri fecit.’ Over the judge is: ‘Plebs sine lege ruit;’ over his wife: ‘Mulier casta, dos pulcherrima.’ The Latin sentence over the judge may have borne some relation to the state of England at the time of his death. It was ‘the motto onthe rings of the serjeants, who were called in the same term, in which Cooke was raised to the bench.’ The square plate below the feet of the figures bears this inscription:

Marmore sub duro Gulielmus Cocus humatur
Judex justicia notus ubique sua.
Ingenio valuit doctrina cognitione
Necnon et magno præditus eloquio.
Vir bonus atque pius magna pietate coruscas (Or possibly “coruscäs”.)
Virtutum semper verus alumnus erat.
Nunc merito vita defunctum lugimus eheu!
Hoc moriente viro nemo dolore caret.

Some small portions of this brass are unfortunately now lost (Boutell’s Monumental Brasses of England).

On the other side lies a stone which is thus engraved, though now very difficult to be read:

‘Eliz. Johannis Lane A. M. hujus ecclesie Rectoris Uxor
κουριδια (This in Greek script; if you can’t read it on your PC, it reads kappa omicron upsilon rho iota delta iota (possibly with an acute accent over it) alpha – meaning ‘wedded’), ac dilectissima ob. 9^no die Nov. An. Sal. Humanæ 1743, æt. 27. Quem semper acerbum, semper honoratum (voluit sie numen) habebo. Ostendunt terris hanc tantum Fata, neque ultra esse sinunt. She was a wife, take her for all in all, I shall not look upon her like again. Fœmina ingenuis orta parentibus, jam teneris in cunabulis orphana, educta libere: rei familiaris egregie perita. Quot vero, quantasque ærumnas, durante brevissimo hujus vitæ curriculo, per malitiam (Cole, with his usual tendency towards slander and detraction, spares neither the wife, nor her husband. The whole epitaph has been here given, not for its worth, but in order to show what strange compositions sometimes go under this title) clanculum in tenebris operantem, necnon apertam, audacem et impudentem, quinetiam per superbiam in altum evecti pseudo-fratris, unius saltem togati hominis, causas, nullus dubito, sed non sine numine, tam immaturæ mortis, constanti animo pertulit, Summa Dies, cum corda universi hominum generis apertissima fuerint, indicabit.
Δια
των
αγνωστων
σου
παθηματων
ελεησον
ημας
Κυριε (This text is heavily accented in the original book, something we don’t know how to re-produce.).’

On the south and north walls of the ehancel are tablets with these inscriptions,

‘Marmor Hoo Mernorim sacrum Oli-A
veri Naylor A. M. cujus juxta Uxorem Reliquiee infra con-
duntur, olim Hujus Eoelesiee Rectoris: summa Pietate tilii
duo posuerunt. Variolis eorreptus ad Mereedem earum Vir-
tutum capiendam Quee Eum desideratum Omnibus, Prmcipue
vero Propinquis suis et amiois efliciunt, abiit decimo ootavo
die Febr“. anno Dom. MDCCLXXV. Etatis 71.

Sub altari situm est quod mortale fuit Saræ Uxoris O. Naylor A.M. hujus ecclesiæ rectoris. Illa in Maritum Amore, in Liberos Pietate, in Amicos Fidelitate Nulli Secunda: obiit sexto die Martii MDDCCLX. Ætatis suæ LIV.’

Under the east window there was in 1744 a small brass with the following inscription:

Orate pro anima Domini Johannis Scot [rectoris] istius ecclesiæ, qui fecit fieri istam fenestram.’

In the pavement of the chancel were:

‘Of your charitie praye for the soule of Mrs Hellen Bird Sister to Mr Doctor Harrison parson of the churche.’

‘Of your charitie praye for the soules of William Bird, and Margaret his wife,
which decessed the 20 daye of Aprile in the year of our Lord God 1445 (Since Mr Doctor Harrison died in November 1542, there may be an error in the date, 1445 for 1545), on whose soules Jesu have mercy. Amen.’

‘Of your charitie pray for the soule of Mr Richard Alanson, late vicar of this church, which decessed the 28 daye of June in the year of our Lord MCCCCCXIX. (This date must be wrong, inasmuch as Mr Richard A1anson’s name occurs in wills made so late as April 1521. No doubt 1519 is put for 1529, an x having been omitted)’

These brasses have all disappeared: two old stone slabs however, which once had
short inscriptions, remain, one still in the chancel, the other near the tower arch.

Blomeneld mentions, as hanging in the chancel, an achievement with the arms of Duncomb, in memory of Mrs Stephens, who was a member of that family – party per
chevron engrailed, sable and argent, 3 talbots’ heads erased counterchanged, with Ulster arms, impaling party per chevron, argent and gules, in chief 2 cocks sable, in base a saltyre humetty, or: motto, ‘Moriendo vivo.’

The vestry, on the north east, built twenty years ago by the parishioners with some assistance from the rector, is entered from the chancel, Its door is of old oak, and carved after the pattern of the oaken work in the chancel: this as
well as its frame-work of stone came from the former rectory house. The porch was erected in 1847 on the site of the original porch, when its eastern stone bench, having long lain hidden and forgotten in the midst of rubbish, was discovered and at length restored to its proper use. Externally there appear to be two porches to the_church; the space, however, previously serving for a porch, was really, as mentioned before, only a part of the south aisle. The doorway, which, I since the church restorations so persistently and laudably carried on to completion by the present rector, now leads from the porch directly into the south aisle, by whomsoever put in (and it existed in 1744), is Grecian instead of Gothic like the rest of the building. Its form and style may have been suggested by the nature of the chancel arch, though it is equally possible for them to be due to that utter want of an ecclesiastical taste in architecture, so prevalent until recently. Over this door are the words: ‘Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.’

The communion plate consists of two small silver cups, and two plates also of silver, One of the cups of some antiquity, and is nicely ornamented round the bowl. This is rarely, if ever, used. A cup somewhat larger in size, the gift
of the present rector, is that commonly employed. The inside of the bowl is gilt, and at the bottom, so as not to be visible without examination, is the following inscription: ‘Dedicated to the service of God by John Chapman, M.A. rector of Milton. 1853.’ The larger of the plates has on the rim the arms probably of the donor – ermine, two boars, argent : crest, a boar’s head, erect, argent. On the back of the smaller one is: ‘Milton Church. The gift of the Rev. L. C. Powys, Curate, 1829.’

The dimensions of the Church are as follows:

The parish registers of A Milton are a long way from being in a satisfactory state. The early portion of them has been irrecoverably lost, except so far as the copies annually sent in from 1599 are still in the Bishop of Ely’s office. Cole’s observations about the registers at Milton are worth recording:

‘Sending to the clerk for the parish registers, he sent me two paper books, all that he ever saw or heard of, the oldest beginning in 1653, and often very ill kept, the other in 1705. In the former was the usual declaration – These are to certify all men how that Thomas Richards is by the assent and consent of the parishioners of the town of Milton chosen to be register for marridges, births, and burialls according to the Act of Parliament bearing date 24 August 1653, and these are to certify farther, that he is approved by me to be a sufficient clearke, and is also sworn to be the register for the said town. In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal 26 November 1653.

JAMES BLACKLEY (Mayor of Cambridge in 1649)

The portion now existing begins with a baptism on 6th May 1705, and certainly the condition of the registers even then, and likewise during the remainder of the eighteenth century, does little credit to the person or persons in whose
charge they were.

‘Registers entrusted till lately (1782) to the care of ignorant and illiterate clerks of the parish: it is no wonder they often forgot to make entries, and no
wonder, also, that there are so many defects.’

The first entry of a burial is dated 10 February 1709-10, the previous leaf, all but a very minute fragment, having been torn off. As required by the Act of Parliament of 1678, it is stated, that affidavits respecting the bodies being buried in woollen had been duly made, though such remarks ceased from March 1713-14, and merely again, occur, but then not more than a few times, between 1731 and 1739. The Act was only repealed in 1814.

Mixed up with the usual entries, the earliest of the existing books contains a large number of notices about collections made in the church on briefs, and the payments of the proceeds to the appointed receivers, when they came round for the money. The briefs were very numerous: we End thirty four received in four years beginning with 1710. Besides, not only were they issued on account of losses from fire, inundations, thunder and hail, &c., and to procure assistance
towards the building or reparation of churches, funds were equally attempted to be raised in this way for other, and somewhat unexpected objects. The first notice is taken from Cole.

1676. Collected for 30 Protestant ministers, which the emperor [of Germany] gave to the king of Spain to serve in the galleys at Naples, and released at the intercession of Charles II. of England, 3s. 2d.

March 7th, 1707-8. Collected for y^e Protestant Church at Oberbarmen in y^e Dutchy of Berg in Germany, 3s. 6d.

September 21st, 1709. Collected for y^e Relief, Subsistence, and Settlement, of y^e Pore, Distressed Palatines near y^e Rhine in Germany, 8s. 7d.

October 16th, 1709. Collected for y^e Protestant Church at Mittau in Courland and Livonia, 1s. 7d.

1715. Cowkeepers’ Brief nere London, 2s. ld. (Does this bear upon the history of the destructive cattle plague, from whose ravages our fellow-countrymen recently suffered so much?)

A table of fees, framed and glazed, hung in 1744 against the north wall of the chance]: the payments are somewhat different now:

Fees settled by the minister and the whole parish of Milton,
in the county of Cambridge.

			s.	d.
Marriage	in the parish	to the Minister	2	6
		to the Clark	1	0
	out of the parish	to the Minister	5	0
		to the Clark	2	6

		s.	d.
Burial	to the Minister	2	0
	to the Clark	2	0

That no person at the time of being churched offer less than sixpence.
April 20, 1742.

	GEO. TOWERS, Minister.
THO. PAGE, Junr.	Churchwardens.
HEN. CHAMBERS,

Milton churchyard, like the others in the neighbourhood, is rather small: it is partially planted with shrubs, and carefully kept. Until lately there was in it at the east end of the chancel, and close to the wall, an altar tomb of free stone to the memory of Richard Stephens, rector of the parish, who died in 1727, and desired to be buried in that spot. The south side of this tomb still lies on the ground opposite the east window and bears an inscription to his widow:

‘Diana Stephens, Filia Francisci Duncomb de Comitatu Surriæ Baronetti, et Relicta Ricardi Stephens, in summa tabula hujus monumenti memorati, cum per decem menses marito superfuisset, ob. 16⁰ die Junii 1728, æt. 65.’

A descendant of Mr Stephens? family writes in 1856:

‘His wife who survived him, gave the College £200 towards the erection of the New Building on the S. W. of the chapel, [which had been begun in 1724,] and the Society, in a fit of violent gratitude, [out of regard and gratitude, an instance both of their humanity and good nature,] put up the tomb now gone to decay, Dr Snape, the provost, composing the epitaph. And it is to be hoped the stone-cutter was very grateful to him for a good job, for the Doctor very ingeniously spun it out to 50 lines of prose.’

The slab lies now in the pavement of the chancel: its inscription is all but
obliterated. Cole has preserved it (MSS. Vol VI. fol 5).

On the east end of the church is a stone, whose inscription has been thought to be, but surely without reason, something of a curiosity, because only one day is mentioned, the day of the young man’s death:

‘Here lies the body of Th^s. Cannon, who died June 15^th, 1726, aged 17. His master and mistress erect this little monument to his memory, as an acknowledgem^t of his faithful service the 4 years he lived with them [at the rectory]. God grant that he & they may
ind mercy with the Lord in that day.’

The Rev. John Micklebourgh, rector of Landbeach, put a head and foot stone to the memory of a former fellow of Caius College, who, having obtained the rectory of Bincombe in Dorsetshire, resigned it, and lived the remainder of his
life in S. Edward’s parish, Cambridge:

‘H. S. E. Johannes Kitchingman A.M. regnante Carole natus, Cromwello rerum potiente literis innutritus Cantabrigiæ, post restauratam ecclesiam presbyter, Collegii Gonv. et Caii Socius, Exinde ad rectoriam de Bincomb in Agro Dorsetiensi evectus, quam quidem, quod locus parum arriserit, abdicavit, possessionem ratus beneficii cum alter obiret munus, sophistice magis quam vere defendi. Temporis sic moribus effusis pariter et fucatu abhorruit; vixit temperans, senio confectus obiit annum agens 91, Jun. X, MDCCXXIX.’

Could we depend upon an expression in the Rotuli Hundredorum (MSS. Vol VI. fol. 5), a residence house for the rector existed at Milton in 1279. He does not appear to have then inhabited it; at least, taking the messuage and cottage there mentioned to mean one and the same building, and that properly the rectory house, it was in the temporary occupation of Alan Textor, not of Peter de Woseri. However, a doubt about this being the rectory-house may allowably be entertained, since the original Latin is by no means clear upon the point, and may be thought to signify merely that a farmer of that day hired both the farm and farm-house, which the aforesaid rector possessed because belonging to his living. Still there must have been some house wherein the rector, being at that time in sole charge of the parish did, at all events, commonly dwell, as of right and custom. And this house continued for a long period (and afterwards- occasionally) to be inhabited by him, even when the living had come under the additional charge of another by the establishment of a vicarage. For we know that both parish authorities did reside
in Milton at the same time, and, no doubt, worked harmoniously together, each performing the duties which were considered to belong to him. In 1782 Cole described the rectory-house as an old mansion, and added that it had been
uninhabited many years. This is probably an exaggeration, inasmuch as Oliver Naylor only died in 1775, and he certainly must have lived there occasionally, and his curate it may be, when he was himself elsewhere. The old premises
were taken down in 1846, and a new house built by Mr Chapman. This house is not very large, though sufficiently so perhaps, very comfortable, and apparently well arranged. The situation of it is extremely convenient from its proximity
to the church, and yet being hardly removed from the village. The church, with the rectory-house and garden, form altogether a pleasing picture.

A vicarage-house, as was to be expected, once existed in Milton, independently of, and contemporaneous with, the house of residence for the rector. It stood near the present high road, a little to the west of the church. At least, sixty
years ago, a dilapidated cottage, now long removed, ‘a poor wretched hovel, tenanted by a farm-labourer,’ went commonly in the parish by the name of the vicarage. It still existed whilst Mr Knight was rector, since in a terrier signed by him and delivered at the bishop of Ely’s visitation in 1779, he takes notice of ‘a cottage belonging to the vicarage.’

In 1836 the parish school, which then existed at Milton, was taken into union with the Central National Society in London for promoting the education of the poor in the principles of the Established Church. But to benefit the inhabitants in a still greater degree, by increasing the means of instructing
them, the provost and fellows of King’s College, to whom the advowson of the rectory pertained, soon took advantage of the Act of 6 and 7 Guliel. IV. entitled ‘An Act to facilitate the conveyance of sites for school rooms,’ &c. They therefore gave land, and erected proper premises in 1839. From the deed drawn up on that occasion the following is an extract-

“the said premises to be used, occupied and employed in and for the maintenance and carrying on of a school for the religious education of the children of the poor of the parish of Milton, and the neighbourhood thereof, in the principles of the Christian religion according to the doctrines and discipline of the United Church of England and Ireland, and such other branches of useful knowledge as the vicar (The rectory had for many years been regarded, through default of residence, as merely a sinecure) for the time being shall in his discretion think proper.”

The founders of the school then give the vicar absolute right over the school, and the mistress thereof, only reserving to themselves visitorial power and inspection.

The following account (From the records in the Diocesan Registry) of certain visitations of Milton church and its parish authorities is well worth adding, not merely for the positive information which it furnishes, but equally, if not more so, for the very interesting particulars contained therein respecting the proceedings instituted against some contumacious officers. The Latin notes of these Visitations are here expanded, and the contracted words written at length. It may be, however, that the clerk himself, who wrote the notes, could not have done this, since the peculiar way, in which by training and habit he kept them, was to him a kind of short-hand.

Visitatio Reverendi in Christo Patris et Domini, Domini Lanceloti, permissione divina, Eliensis Episcopi, tenta et celebrata Die Martis existente quinto die mensis Junii, Anno Domini 1610, hora nona ante meridiem ejusdem diei; in Ecclesia parochiali Beate Marie Majoris juxta Forum Ville Cantebrigiensis. Visitabuntur Decanatus de Campo, Barton, et Chesterton.

M^r Abraham Gates, Rector de Weston Colvyle, Concionator.

Milton.

Mr ——-	Rector.
	Sequestf’ Rectorie (Roger Goade had died in April, and his son Thomas was not instituted until September, 1610). Co[mparuit].
Mr Willelmus Kellam Cur’. Co.
Johannes Hewtson		Gard[iani].	Co. Jur’.
Johannes Foote
Edwinus Graye		Inquiss. (These inquirers or quest-men, are sometimes termed sidesmen, correctly, sidemen. The word may be a corruption for synod-men, but it is also used actually for sidemen. Since at Hadleigh in Suffolk two men so called with long wands are wont to walk up and down the north and south aisles during the whole time of divine service, to keep order)
Willelmus Briggs
Johannes Foote		Gards. – Presentatur that they have
Johannes Huteson

a lynnen cloathe for the Communion Table, but not a convenient one. And the Churcheyard fence is in decaye.

Et 16⁰ Julii, 1610, exhibita citacione originali per Jo. Stynnett, literatum (The officer who executed the citations was called mandatarius, the citation being styled in the acts of court mandatum originale. Oughton (Ordo Judiciorum, Vol. I. p. 44, Tit. xxi.) says, ” Quivis literatus (licet non intelligat linguam Latinam) dicitur, et admittitur, ex longo usu, idoneus (in hac parte) mandatarius: oportet tamen, ut sit literatus, ita quod possit literas scriptas, vel impressas, legere.)”), &c., citatur predictus Huteson, sed predictus Foote perquisitus non inventus{-The apparitor, therefore, had not been able to serve the citation
personally upon John Foote. In such cases a citation, technically called citatio viis et modis, was affixed to the door of the party’s house, or, if his house could not be found, upon the church-door.-}, qui amloo preconizati comparuerunt; fatentur{-The course of the proceedings was this: The apparitor exhibited the original citation and the parties were called (preconizati): if they appeared they either confess (fatentur), or deny (negant), the matters
articled against them: the judge then gave his decree, which in an early
stage of a cause was generally an order to appear at the next court-day.-}. [Moniti] Ad parandum a convenient communion table cloath for the table, et ad reparandum
Pd. 17d. Fensuram cemeterii predicti, et ad certificandum inde proximo [die juridico] post Festum Natalis Domini proximum.

Et 14⁰ Januarii 1610-11, dicti Gardiani preconizati, comparuit Huitson. [Moniti] Ad certiticandum inde sexto die juridico jam proxime sequenti, viz. 4 Marcii proximi.

Et dicti [Gardiani] 4 Marcii predicti, preconizati non comparuerunt. Expectantur in 8 Aprilis proximi (They were waited for as long as possible, before suspension was decreed for their contumacy. A form of excommunication contains these words – Sæpius publice præconizatos, diu et sufficienter expectatos, et nullo modo comparentes).

Et 8 Aprilis 1611, dicti Gardiani preconizati non comparuerunt. Expectantur in proximum [diem juridicum].

Et 15 Aprilis 1611, dicti Gardiani preconizati non comparuerunt. Suspenduntur.

Pd. 4s. 6d. Et 29 Aprilis 1611, coram Doctore Gager (He was Chancellor, and held various othces at different times under the see of Ely. Bentham and Stevenson, Vol. I. p. 197: Vol. II. pp. 10, 20, 28, 33) &c. comparuerunt ambo. Absolvuntur{-Huteson and Foote had been suspended for their contumacy in not appearing, which suspension was the lesser excommunication, and
now they were absolved on paying the sum mentioned in the margin.-}, tactis [evangeliis] &c., et viva voce certificaverunt that they have a linnen cloth for the communion table, and the churchyard fenced, et dimittuntur.

Oliverus Frohocke, generosus. Presentatur y^t he before M^r D^r Goade, & diverse others of y^e parishe of Milton, used
unreverent speaches against M^r Willm Kellam, his minister: viz. He is a busye and contentiouse persone, and suche a one as settethe his neighbors togither by the eares: and it is his daylye practise.

Et 16⁰ Julii, 1610, exhibita citacione originali per Jo. Stynnett, literatum, &c. perquisitus fuit dietus Frohoke, sed non inventus, qui preconizatus comparuit, et objecto ei articulo predicto, dictus Frohoke petiit copiam citacionis et bille detectionis (The presentments of the churchwardeus were thus styled) predicate respective, et terminum sibi assignari ad
respondendum dicte detectioni in proximum diem juridicum. Dominus monuit eundem Frohoke ad respondendum detectioni predicte ad statim, in presentia. Frohoke petentis prout prius. Et Dominus primo, 2⁰ et 3⁰, instanter instantius et instantissime eundem Frohoke monuit ad respondendum bille detectionis predicte ad statim, dicto Frohoke petente prout supra. Tunc Dominus ad peticionem dicti Frohoke concessit ei copiam detectionis predicte, et assignavit ei ad respondendum detectioni predicte proximo die juridico.

Et primo Octobris, 1610, dictus Frohoke preconizatus non comparuit. Expectatur in proximum [diem juridicum].

Et 8 Octobris, 1610, dictus Frohoke preconizatus comparuit. [Monitus] ad comparendum 4 die juridico jam proxime sequenti, duodecimo viz. Novembris proximi.

Et 12⁰ Novembris 1610, dictus M^r Frohocke preconizatus
non comparuit. Expectatur in proximum [diem juridicum] post Festum Natalie Domini proximum.

Et 14⁰ Januarii, 1610[-11], dictus M^r Frohoke preconizatus non comparuit. Pena in proximum.

Et 21⁰ Januarii, 1610[-11], dictus M^r Frohocke preconizatus non comparuit. Ex consistorio &c. Dominus eum dimisit (It seems the Chancellor was fairly tired out).

Oliverus Frohoke, predictus, generosus Thomas Foote

Presentatur Yt

the ould Churchwardens delivered to y^e parishioners theire Accompts at Easter last by byll Indented, but M^r Frohoke receyved the sayd bills & delivered them to Tho. Foote, & what is become of them we (The churchwardens of 1610 present the ohurchwardens of 1609) knowe not.

Et 16⁰ Julii, 1610, exhibita citacione originali per Jo. Stynnett, literatum, &c. citatur predictus Tho. Foote, sed predictus Frohoke (Administration of his estate was granted to his son George in 1614) fuit perquisitus et non inventus, qui ambo preconizati [comparent] et dieunt that they have made a juste accompte of theire churchwardenshippe, & y^t is written and set downe in the churche booke there, and allowed of by the cumpanye then present. And y^t this writings in the sayd detection mentioned was an Accompte of y^e wholl, viz. all whatsoever they had receyved and layed oute in the tyme of theire churchwardenshippe, which they estemed not of, for that it was before written & sett downe in theire sayd church booke.

Willelmus Jollye. Presentatur apud Chesterton for that he holdeth lands in Chesterton and refuseth to paye that which he is levied towards the relyf of the Poore in that case provided. This matter is entred amongest Chesterton causes & there delte in orderlye, as it dothe & may there appere.

Die Mercurii existente XIX die Mensis Maii, A.D. 1613, hora nona ante meridiem &c., in ecclesia parochiali B. Marie Majoris &c., Visitacio ordinaria Lanceloti &c., per Venerabilem virum Magistrum, Wilhelmum Gager, Ll. Doctorem, vicarium in spiritualibus generalem &c. (The Preacher for the Deaneries of Camps, Barton, and Chesterton was Mr. John Lively, Vicar of Over)

Milton.

Mr. Thomas Goade, Rector. Co. Mr. Willelmus Kellam, Cur. Non Co. excusatus.
Oliverus Harte	Gard.	Co. omnes et jur’.
Henricus Thurban
Henricus Briggs	Inquiss..
Willelmus Hurrell

General Episcopal Visitation, Die Jovis, 2⁰ Maii, A.D. 1616 (The Preacher for these Deaneries was Mr. Theodore Bathurst, Vicar of Thriplowe).

Milton.

Mr. Dr. Goade, Rector. Non Co. excusatus. Mr. Willelmus Kellam, Curatus. Co.
Thomas Frohocke	Gard.	Co. omnes et jur’.
Gawinus Grave
Willelmus Briggs	Inquiss.
Ws Hurrell

Parochial Visitation of D^r. King (Bentham and Stevenson, Vol. II. pp. 11, 28), Chancellor to the Lord Bishop of Elie [Mathew Wren], for the Deaneries of Chesterton, Barton, & Camps, July 31⁰. 1665.

Milton.

John Graves Henry Pate

Gard.

+1.	The Font to be new ledded.
+2 (The things done were crossed off).	The bell cracked to be new cast and amended citra Festum Pasche, & certificare in diem Sabbati proxime sequentem.
+3.	Mrs. Harris her chappell is defective both in timber & led. Moniti Gard’. ad reparandum et certificandum ut prius.
+4.	The desk to be fringed upon Greene{-Green was the colour ordinarily used in such cases at that time, at least, in Cambridgeshire. But why? Probably for no ecclesiastical reason. Might it not have been to encourage the congregation of Dutch, who, by the special favour of Queen Elizabeth had been tolerated, to practise at Colchester the art and trade of bay (baize) and say making, and for whose protection an Act was passed in 1660? The eating of salt fish was enjoined for one reason, at least, to maintain the fisheries.-} cloth.	Habent ad certoficandum de parando hec omnia citra diem Sabbati post Festum Pasche proximum.
5.	A table of degrees wanting.
+6.	A book of Cannons wanting.
+7.	A locke to the Church dore wanting.
+8.	A napkin wanting to the Communion.
+9.	A new patten for the Communion Cup to be changed & made larger.
+10.	A booke of Homylies wanting.
11.	The Fence of the west end of the church to be amended.
+12.	The Pulpit to be removed where now it stands to the place where formerlie it was placed.
210	Aprilis comparuit Jo. Graves, Gard’, & certificavit quod omnia sunt peracta, preter ye font to be ledded & a table of degrees wanting. Habent ad certificandum de ledding & Table of degrees in diem Sabbati ante Festum Pentecosti.

Visitatio Ecclesiarum, &c. per Gulielmum Cooke (Bentham and Stevenson, Vol. II. pp. 11, 34), Ll. Doctorem, Reverendi in Christo Patris Petri [Gunning] Eliensis Episcopi Vicarium generalem. 17⁰ Junii, 1678.

Milton.

Wm Kettle Hen. Payton

Gard. comt.

1. The font wants a new cover amd a plugg.
2. The Churche roofe to bee pointed.
3. The Pullpitt cloath to bee. mended.
4. A booke of homilyes to bee provided.
5. The wainscote of y^e seate on ye south side of y^e chancell to bee wainscoted and y^e wall to bee whited and plaistred.
6. Three keys for y^e poore man’s box.
7. Pertition on y^e south side of y^e Church to bee mended and raised higher.
8. The sealing in y^e Chancell to bee mended.
9. A Table of degreese wanting.
10. The north wall of y^e Church to bee whited and plaistred.

Et D^s. monuit eos certificare de peractione ejusdem proximo die Sabbati post festum Sti Michaelis.

Thee weeds in y^e Churchyard to bee cutt downe.

October 1685 (This visitation is without Title in the original register, but appears to be a visitation of the whole diocese. Francis Turner was bishop, and William Cooke, LL.D., his chancellor).

Milton.

To cleare y^e Churchyard of weeds, and to mend y^e fenceing.
The Church to be pointed and tiled.

The Perticion in y^e Church, where the lime is, to bee taken away.

To provide a table of Degreese and a Plugg for y^e fonte.

To keepe y^e Register in y^e Cheste under 3 locks.

To give notice to S^r Francis Pemberton’s Tennante to A pave y^e Private Chappell, and to repaire y^e Leadworke, and timber which is rotten.

To give notice to y^e Parson to plaister and white y^e chancell, and to boord y^e seats & seileing where wanting.