Shearsby
Shearsby is a rural village in the English county of Leicestershire. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 240, it is in the Harborough district around nine miles due south of Leicester and north east of Lutterworth. In the early 17th century the Vicar of St Mary Magdelene, Rector of Knaptoft was John Moore, a Puritan who wrote A Mappe of Man's Mortalite in 1617 and struggled to maintain his principles against the authorities within the Church of England. In November 1604 he was brought before the ecclesiastical court for nonconformity, refusing to wear the surplice, summoned a further four more times in 1605, he was discharged by the court in'hope of conformity'. These are the listed buildings at Shearsby: Back Lane - Cobblestones Church Lane - Bean Hill Farmhouse and garden wall Church Lane - Church of St Mary Magdelene Church Lane - Limetree Cottage Church Lane - Wheathill Farmhouse and Little Wheathill Church Lane - Yeomans Cottage Main Street - Woodbine Cottage Mill Lane - Rose Cottage Shearsby Road - Milestone 500 yards north of Shearsby RoadAll are Grade II, apart from the Church of St Mary Magdalene, Grade II*.
A holy well on the road south and west of the village – between the main Leicester-Northampton road and Bruntingthorpe – was converted into a spa, popular during the first half of the 19th century. The waters were held to be efficacious in treating skin diseases, rheumatism and nervous disorders. Analysis of the mineral content revealed the major constituents to be sodium sulphate and sodium chloride; as early as 1855 it was reported to have fallen out of popularity. Nonetheless the'Bath Hotel and Shearsby Spa' remains in business at its site
Domesday Book
Domesday Book is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William the Conqueror. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle states: Then, at the midwinter, was the king in Gloucester with his council.... After this had the king a large meeting, deep consultation with his council, about this land. Sent he his men over all England into each shire, it was written in Medieval Latin, was abbreviated, included some vernacular native terms without Latin equivalents. The survey's main purpose was to determine what taxes had been owed during the reign of King Edward the Confessor, which allowed William to reassert the rights of the Crown and assess where power lay after a wholesale redistribution of land following the Norman conquest; the assessors' reckoning of a man's holdings and their values, as recorded in Domesday Book, was dispositive and without appeal. The name "Domesday Book" came into use in the 12th century; as Richard FitzNeal wrote in the Dialogus de Scaccario: for as the sentence of that strict and terrible last account cannot be evaded by any skilful subterfuge, so when this book is appealed to... its sentence cannot be quashed or set aside with impunity.
That is why we have called the book "the Book of Judgement"... because its decisions, like those of the Last Judgement, are unalterable. The manuscript is held at The National Archives at London. In 2011, the Open Domesday site made the manuscript available online; the book is an invaluable primary source for historical economists. No survey approaching the scope and extent of Domesday Book was attempted again in Britain until the 1873 Return of Owners of Land which presented the first complete, post-Domesday picture of the distribution of landed property in the British Isles. Domesday Book encompasses two independent works; these were "Little Domesday", "Great Domesday" No surveys were made of the City of London, Winchester, or some other towns due to their tax-exempt status. Most of Cumberland and Westmorland are missing. County Durham is missing; the omission of the other counties and towns is not explained, although in particular Cumberland and Westmorland had yet to be conquered. "Little Domesday" – so named because its format is physically smaller than its companion's – is the more detailed survey, down to numbers of livestock.
It may have represented the first attempt, resulting in a decision to avoid such level of detail in "Great Domesday". Both volumes are organised into a series of chapters listing the fees, held by a named tenant-in-chief of the king, namely religious institutions, Norman warrior magnates and a few Saxon thegns who had made peace with the Norman regime; some of the largest such magnates held several hundred fees, in a few cases in more than one county. For example, the chapter of the Domesday Book Devonshire section concerning Baldwin the Sheriff lists 176 holdings held in-chief by him. Only a few of the holdings of the large magnates were held in demesne, most having been subinfeudated to knights military followers of the tenant-in-chief which latter thus became their overlord; the fees listed within the chapter concerning a particular tenant-in-chief were ordered, but not in a systematic or rigorous fashion, by the Hundred Court under the jurisdiction of which they were situated, not by geographic location.
As a review of taxes owed, it was unpopular. Each county's list opened with the king's demesne lands, it should be borne in mind that under the feudal system the king was the only true "owner" of land in England, under his allodial title. He was thus the ultimate overlord and the greatest magnate could do no more than "hold" land from him as a tenant under one of the various contracts of feudal land tenure. Holdings of Bishops followed of the abbeys and religious houses of lay tenants-in-chief and lastly the king's serjeants, Saxon thegns who had survived the Conquest, all in hierarchical order. In some counties, one or more principal towns formed the subject of a separate section: in some the clamores were treated separately; this principle applies more to the larger volume: in the smaller one, the system is more confused, the execution less perfect. Domesday names a total of 13,418 places. Apart from the wholly rural portions, which constitute its bulk, Domesday contains entries of interest concerning most of t
Robert Hall (minister)
The Rev. Robert Hall was an English Baptist minister, he was born at Arnesby near Leicester, where his father Robert Hall was pastor of a Baptist congregation. Robert was the youngest of a family of fourteen. While still at the same school his passion for books absorbed most of his time, in summer he used to go to the churchyard after school with a volume, read till nightfall, making out the meaning of the more difficult words with the help of a pocket dictionary. From his sixth to his eleventh year he attended the school of Mr Simmons at Wigston, a village four miles from Arnesby. There he showed an intense interest in metaphysics; this incessant study at such an early period of life seems to have affected his health. After he left Mr Simmons's school his appearance was so sickly as to awaken fears of the presence of phthisis, he was sent to stay in the house of a gentleman near Kettering, who with an impropriety which Hall himself afterwards referred to as "egregious", prevailed upon the boy of eleven to give occasional addresses at prayer meetings.
As his health seemed to recover, he was sent to a school at Northampton run by John Ryland, where he remained a year and a half, "hath great progress in Latin and Greek". On leaving school he for some time studied divinity under the direction of his father and in October 1778 he entered the Bristol academy for the preparation of students for the Baptist ministry. Here his earlier confidence seems to have deserted him. On 13 August 1780, he was set apart to the ministry, but he still continued his studies at the academy, he had no rival in any of the classes, distinguishing himself alike in classics and mathematics. He there formed the acquaintance of James Mackintosh, though a year younger, was a year his senior as a student. While they remained at Aberdeen the two were inseparable, reading together the best Greek authors Plato, discussing, either during their walks by the sea-shore and the banks of the Don or in their rooms until early morning, the most perplexed questions in philosophy and religion.
Between his last two sessions at Aberdeen, Hall acted as assistant pastor to Dr Evans at Broadmead chapel and three months after leaving the university he was appointed classical tutor in the Bristol academy, an office which he held for more than five years. At this period his extraordinary eloquence had excited an interest beyond the bounds of the denomination to which he belonged, when he preached the chapel was crowded to excess, the audience including many intellectuals; as a result of suspicions in regard to his orthodoxy, he accepted an invitation to make trial of a congregation at St Andrew's Street Baptist Chapel Cambridge, of which he became pastor in July 1791. From the contents of a letter to the congregation which he left, it would appear that, while a firm believer in the proper divinity of Christ, he had at this time disowned the cardinal principles of Calvinism, it was during his Cambridge ministry, which extended over a period of fifteen years, that his oratory was most brilliant and most powerful.
Hall began to suffer from mental derangement in November 1804. He recovered and was able to resume his duties in April 1805, but a recurrence forced him to resign his pastoral office in March 1806. On leaving Cambridge he paid a visit to his relatives in Leicestershire, for some time resided at Enderby preaching in some of the neighbouring villages. Latterly he ministered to a small congregation in Harvey Lane, at the close of 1806 he accepted a call to be their stated pastor. In the autumn of 1807 he moved from Enderby to Leicester, in 1808 he married the servant of a brother minister, he had proposed after an momentary acquaintance in abrupt and peculiar terms. On the death of Dr Ryland, Hall was invited to return to the pastorate of Broadmead chapel, as the peace of the congregation at Leicester had been to some degree disturbed by a controversy regarding several cases of discipline, he resolved to accept the invitation, removed there in April 1826, he suffered badly from renal calculus, increasing infirmities and sufferings afflicted him.
The inability to take proper exercise led to a diseased condition of the heart, which resulted in his death. He is remembered as a great pulpit orator, of a somewhat laboured, rhetorical style in his written works, but of undeniable vigour in his spoken sermons. Hall's first published compositions had a political origin. In 1791 he wrote Christianity consistent with the Love of Freedom, a defense of the political conduct of dissenters against the attacks of John Clayton, gave expression to his hopes of political and social improvements as destined to result from the subversion of old ideas and institutions in the French Revolution. In 1793 he expounded his political sentiments in a longer pamphlet, Apology for the Freedom of the Press, he was unhappy with the pamphlet, refused to permit publication after the third edition. In a new edition
Kilby
Kilby is a village and civil parish in the Blaby district of Leicestershire, England. It is the easternmost village in the district, is 6 miles south east of Leicester. Nearby places are Fleckney, Arnesby and Kilby Bridge. In the 1870s Kilby was described as "KILBY, a parish, with a village, in Blaby district, Leicestershire. Post town, under Leicester. Acres, 1,060. Real property, £2,200. Population, 362. Houses, 95." Kilby has had the origins of its name traced back to a Scandinavian form of Old English, being translated to'children's farm/settlement.' Kilby was mentioned in the Domesday book where it was said to have been formed around the parish Church of St. Mary Magdalene. In the Domesday book of 1068 Kilby or Cilebi, as it was spelt, resided in a district called'Guthlaxton Wapentake' under the ownership of Oger the Breton, recorded as Tennant-in-chief. Kilby was recorded as having "28 households, containing 9 villagers, 7 smallholders, 2 slaves and 10 freemen." Kilby was reported as having a Meadow consisting of 12 acres and 1 mill.
Prior to the Domesday book the Lord of Kilby was recorded as Eur who resided as Lord during 1066. The parish Church is now located around a quarter of a mile away from the centre of modern-day Kilby; the original parish Church finished construction in 1220, however this was replaced by the present day parish Church, consecrated in 1858. Population data for Kilby is available dating back to 1811 which at the time had a total population of 242; this figure is close to the 2011 census report of 270 inhabitants. Kilby reached its peak population, as dictated by census records, in 1831 with 434 inhabitants living in the village; this figure significantly dropped to 291 in the 1881 census. The population of Kilby has remained has remained consistent from 1881 to 2011. Kilby contains a number of listed buildings such as the Bakehouse and Gun Public House and Kilby Lodge. Many of the listed buildings date back to at least the 17th century; the boundaries of the parish of Kilby were enlarged in April 1936 when the parish extended to include Foston after the closing of Foston Civil parish.
This caused the parish boundaries of Kilby to increase from 1,068 acres to 2,401 acres, an increase of 1,333 acres. To this day the parish of Kilby still includes Foston. During the 19th century it is recorded that Kilby became an independent parish, having been in union with Newton Harcourt and Fleckney, it is thought. Another boundary change occurred within Kilby during the First World War; this happened due to Lord Cottesloe of Wigston selling 50 acres of smallholdings to Leicestershire County Council, which were in turn given to ex-servicemen from Kilby who had fought in the First World War. Industrial occupational statistics for Kilby are available within the 1881 census; these statistics show that the main employment sector for workers in Kilby in 1881 was agriculture with 30.1% of the population involved. The industrial statistics show that there was no significant divide in the number of men and women employed in occupational sectors. Male workers made up 50.9% of the total number of workers while women consisted of 49.1%.
However, there was a significant divide in the number of men and women employed in the agricultural occupational sector. Within the agricultural workforce 97.87% of the workers were male while 2.13% of the workers were female. Modern day Kilby has seen a shift in the distribution of those involved in occupational employment as compared to the 1881 census report; the 2011 census statistics showed that the most popular occupational employment sector in Kilby was the wholesale and retail trade and the repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles with 15.9% of the working population involved. This has changed from the 1881 census statistic of agriculture being the most prominent form of employment in Kilby with 30.1% of the working population being engaged in agriculture. Whereas in modern-day Kilby only 9.7% of the population is employed in agriculture,a difference of 20.4%. The agricultural occupational sector began to nationally decline in the first half of the 20th century due to the industrialisation and mechanisation of agriculture.
The agricultural sector was replaced by service industries as the major employment sector across England. This national trend can be seen within the industrial statistics available for Kilby where the prominent employment sector in 2011 was a service industry; the total number of persons employed in occupational sectors has decreased between 1881 and 2011. In 1881 the total number of people in employment was 152; this is greater than the 144 persons in employment sectors in Kilby in 2011. In 2011 the working population was smaller than 1881 though the overall population of Kilby was greater than 1881; this can be attributed to children leaving school at a younger age in the 19th century to go to work, as opposed to the 21st century. Kilby has only one pub called the an Anglican Primary School and a Parish Church. There is a park for the residents of Kilby; the park has swings, a roundabout, climbing obstacles and a picnic table. There is a public bus service that runs at hourly intervals that connects with Kibworth Beauchamp or directly to Charles Street, Leicester.
There is a small elderly community. Kilby is located near the River Sense. Kilby had a population of 270 according to the 2011 census. Public transport in Kilby is served by the Arriva bus company that runs a service beginning in Leicester and running through Wigston Magna, Wigston
Leicester
Leicester is a city and unitary authority area in the East Midlands of England, the county town of Leicestershire. The city close to the eastern end of the National Forest; the 2016 mid year estimate of the population of the City of Leicester unitary authority was 348,300, an increase of 18,500 from the 2011 census figure of 329,839, making it the most populous municipality in the East Midlands region. The associated urban area is the 11th most populous in England and the 13th most populous in the United Kingdom. Leicester is at the intersection of two major railway lines—the north/south Midland Main Line and the east/west Birmingham to London Stansted CrossCountry line. Leicester is the home to football club Leicester City and rugby club Leicester Tigers; the name of Leicester is recorded in the 9th-century History of the Britons as Cair Lerion, in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as Ligora-ceastre. In the Domesday Book of 1086, it is recorded as Ledecestre; the first element of the name, Ligora or Legora, is explained as a Brittonic river name, in a suggestion going back to William Somner an earlier name of the River Soar, cognate with the name of the Loire.
The second element of the name comes from the Latin castrum, reflected in both Welsh cair and Anglo-Saxon ceastre. Based on the Welsh name, Geoffrey of Monmouth proposes a king Leir of Britain as an eponymous founder in his Historia Regum Britanniae. Leicester is one of the oldest cities in England, with a history going back at least two millennia; the native Iron Age settlement encountered by the Romans at the site seems to have developed in the 2nd or 1st centuries BC. Little is known about this settlement or the condition of the River Soar at this time, although roundhouses from this era have been excavated and seem to have clustered along 8 hectares of the east bank of the Soar above its confluence with the Trent; this area of the Soar was split into two channels: a main stream to the east and a narrower channel on the west, with a marshy island between. The settlement seems to have controlled a ford across the larger channel; the Roman name was a latinate form of the Brittonic word for "ramparts", suggesting the site was an oppidum.
The plural form of the name suggests it was composed of several villages. The Celtic tribe holding the area was recorded as the "Coritanians" but an inscription recovered in 1983 showed this to have been a corruption of the original "Corieltauvians"; the Corieltauvians are believed to have ruled over the area of the East Midlands. It is believed that the Romans arrived in the Leicester area around AD 47, during their conquest of southern Britain; the Corieltauvian settlement lay near a bridge on the Fosse Way, a Roman road between the legionary camps at Isca and Lindum. It remains unclear whether the Romans fortified and garrisoned the location, but it developed from around the year 50 onwards as the tribal capital of the Corieltauvians under the name Ratae Corieltauvorum. In the 2nd century, it received a bathhouse. In 2013, the discovery of a Roman cemetery found just outside the old city walls and dating back to AD 300 was announced; the remains of the baths of Roman Leicester can be seen at the Jewry Wall.
Knowledge of the town following the Roman withdrawal from Britain is limited. There is some continuation of occupation of the town, though on a much reduced scale in the 5th and 6th centuries, its memory was preserved as the Cair Lerion of the History of the Britons. Following the Saxon invasion of Britain, Leicester was occupied by the Middle Angles and subsequently administered by the kingdom of Mercia, it was elevated to a bishopric in either 679 or 680. Their settlement became one of the Five Burghs of the Danelaw, although this position was short-lived; the Saxon bishop, fled to Dorchester-on-Thames and Leicester did not become a bishopric again until the Church of St Martin became Leicester Cathedral in 1927. The settlement was recorded under the name Ligeraceaster in the early 10th century. Following the Norman conquest, Leicester was recorded by William's Domesday Book as Ledecestre, it was noted as a city but lost this status in the 11th century owing to power struggles between the Church and the aristocracy and did not become a legal city again until 1919.
Geoffrey of Monmouth composed his History of the Kings of Britain around the year 1136, naming a King Leir as an eponymous founder figure. According to Geoffrey's narrative, Cordelia had buried her father beneath the river in a chamber dedicated to Janus and his feast day was an annual celebration; when Simon de Montfort became Lord of Leicester in 1231, he gave the city a grant to expel the Jewish population "in my time or in the time of any of my heirs to the end of the world". He justified his action as being "for the good of my soul, for the souls of my ancestors and successors". Leicester's Jews were allowed to move to the eastern suburbs, which were controlled by de Montfort's great-aunt and rival, Countess of Winchester, after she took advice from the scholar and cleric Robert Grosseteste. There is evidence that Jews remained there until 1253, enforcement of the banishment within the city was not rigorously enforced. De Montfort however issued a second edict for the expulsion of Leicester's Jews in 1253, after Grosseteste's death.
De Montfort's m
Norman architecture
The term Norman architecture is used to categorise styles of Romanesque architecture developed by the Normans in the various lands under their dominion or influence in the 11th and 12th centuries. In particular the term is traditionally used for English Romanesque architecture; the Normans introduced large numbers of castles and fortifications including Norman keeps, at the same time monasteries, abbeys and cathedrals, in a style characterised by the usual Romanesque rounded arches and massive proportions compared to other regional variations of the style. These Romanesque styles originated in Normandy and became widespread in north western Europe in England, which contributed considerable development and has the largest number of surviving examples. At about the same time a Norman dynasty ruled in Sicily, producing a distinctive variation incorporating Byzantine and Saracen influences, known as Norman architecture, or alternatively as Sicilian Romanesque. Ancient Rome's invention of the arch is the basis of all Norman architecture.
The term may have originated with eighteenth-century antiquarians, but its usage in a sequence of styles has been attributed to Thomas Rickman in his 1817 work An Attempt to Discriminate the Styles of English Architecture from the Conquest to the Reformation which used the labels "Norman, Early English and Perpendicular". The more inclusive term romanesque was used of the Romance languages in English by 1715, was applied to architecture of the eleventh and twelfth centuries from 1819. Although Edward the Confessor built Westminster Abbey in Romanesque style just before the Conquest, still believed to be the earliest major Romanesque building in England, no significant remaining Romanesque architecture in Britain can be shown to predate the Conquest, although historians believe that many surviving "Norman" elements in buildings, nearly all churches, may well in fact be Anglo-Saxon; the Norman arch is a defining point of Norman architecture. Grand archways are designed to evoke feelings of awe and are commonly seen as the entrance to large religious buildings such as cathedrals.
Viking invaders arrived at the mouth of the river Seine in 911, at a time when Franks were fighting on horseback and Frankish lords were building castles. Over the next century the population of the territory ceded to the Vikings, now called Normans, adopted these customs as well as Christianity and the langue d'oïl. Norman barons built timber castles on earthen mounds, beginning the development of motte-and-bailey castles, great stone churches in the Romanesque style of the Franks. By 950, they were building stone; the Normans were among the most travelled peoples of Europe, exposing them to a wide variety of cultural influences which became incorporated in their art and architecture. They elaborated on the early Christian basilica plan. Longitudinal with side aisles and an apse they began to add in towers, as at the Church of Saint-Étienne]] at Caen, in 1067; this would form a model for the larger English cathedrals some 20 years later. In England, Norman nobles and bishops had influence before the Norman Conquest of 1066, Norman influences affected late Anglo-Saxon architecture.
Edward the Confessor was brought up in Normandy and in 1042 brought masons to work on the first Romanesque building in England, Westminster Abbey. In 1051 he brought in Norman knights. Following the invasion, Normans constructed motte-and-bailey castles along with churches and more elaborate fortifications such as Norman stone keeps; the buildings show massive proportions in simple geometries using small bands of sculpture. Paying attention to the concentrated spaces of capitals and round doorways as well as the tympanum under an arch; the "Norman arch" is the rounded with mouldings carved or incised onto it for decoration. Chevron patterns termed "zig-zag mouldings", were a frequent signature of the Normans; the cruciform churches had deep chancels and a square crossing tower which has remained a feature of English ecclesiastical architecture. Hundreds of parish churches were built and the great English cathedrals were founded from 1083. After a fire damaged Canterbury Cathedral in 1174 Norman masons introduced the new Gothic architecture.
Around 1191 Wells Cathedral and Lincoln Cathedral brought in the English Gothic style, Norman became a modest style of provincial building. Oxford Castle 1074: church tower doubles as a place of refuge St John's Chapel, Tower of London Durham Cathedral was the first to employ a ribbed vault system with pointed arches Winchester Cathedral Ely Cathedral Peterborough Cathedral Kilpeck Church, Herefordshire St Nicholas Church, Surrey Southwell Minster St Mary the Virgin, Oxfordshire St Swithun's in Nately Scures, Hampshire, an example of a Norman single-cell apsidal church. Norwich Cathedral St Edward's Church St Botolph's Priory, Colchester St John's Abbey, Colchester St Peter’s Church, Rutland – Norman chancel Dunstable PrioryBibliography Sedding, Edmund H. Norman Architecture in Cornwall: a handbook to old ecclesiastical architecture. With over 160 plates. London: Ward & Co. White Tower Rochester Castle Norwich Castle Colchester Castle, the largest Norman castle built and the first stone Keep in England Hedingham Castle, Essex Jew's House, Lincoln Boothby Pagnell Manor, Lincolnshire Oakham Castle, Rutland Moyse's Hall Museum Bury St Edmunds Suffolk Scotland came under early
Civil parish
In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government, they are a territorial designation, the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of ecclesiastical parishes which played a role in both civil and ecclesiastical administration; the unit rolled out across England in the 1860s. A civil parish can range in size from a large town with a population of about 75,000 to a single village with fewer than a hundred inhabitants. Eight parishes have city status. A civil parish may be known as and confirmed as a town, neighbourhood or community by resolution of its parish council, a right reserved not conferred on other units of English local government. 35% of the English population live in a civil parish. As of 31 December 2015 there were 10,449 parishes in England; the most populous is Weston super Mare and those with cathedral city status are Chichester, Hereford, Ripon, Salisbury and Wells.
On 1 April 2014, Queen's Park became the first civil parish in Greater London. Before 2008 their creation was not permitted within a London borough. Wales was divided into civil parishes until 1974, when they were replaced by communities, which are similar to English parishes in the way they operate. Civil parishes in Scotland were abolished for local government purposes by the Local Government Act 1929, the Scottish equivalent of English civil parishes are community council areas, which were established by the Local Government Act 1973; the Parish system in Europe was established between the 8th and 12th centuries and in England was old by the time of the Conquest. These areas were based on the territory of one or more manors, areas which in some cases derived their bounds from Roman or Iron Age estates. Parish boundaries were conservative, changing little, after 1180'froze' so that boundaries could no longer be changed at all, despite changes to manorial landholdings - though there were some examples of sub-division.
The consistency of these boundaries, up until the 19th century is useful to historians, is of cultural significance in terms of shaping local identities, a factor reinforced by the adoption of parish boundaries unchanged, by successor local government units. There was huge variation in size between parishes, for instance Writtle in Essex was 13,568 acres while neighbouring Shellow Bowells was just 469 acres, Chignall Smealy 476 acres; until the break with Rome, parishes managed ecclesiastical matters, while the manor was the principal unit of local administration and justice. The church replaced the manor court as the rural administrative centre, levied a local tax on produce known as a tithe. In the medieval period, responsibilities such as relief of the poor passed from the Lord of the Manor to the parish's rector, who in practice would delegate tasks among his vestry or the monasteries. After the dissolution of the monasteries, the power to levy a rate to fund relief of the poor was conferred on the parish authorities by the Act for the Relief of the Poor 1601.
Both before and after this optional social change, local charities are well-documented. The parish authorities were consisted of all the ratepayers of the parish; as the number of ratepayers of some parishes grew, it became difficult to convene meetings as an open vestry. In some built up, areas the select vestry took over responsibility from the entire body of ratepayers; this innovation allowed governance by a self-perpetuating elite. The administration of the parish system relied on the monopoly of the established English Church, which for a few years after Henry VIII alternated between the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England, before settling on the latter on the accession of Elizabeth I in 1558. By the 18th century, religious membership was becoming more fractured in some places, due for instance to the progress of Methodism; the legitimacy of the parish vestry came into question and the perceived inefficiency and corruption inherent in the system became a source for concern in some places.
For this reason, during the early 19th century the parish progressively lost its powers to ad hoc boards and other organisations, for example the loss of responsibility for poor relief through the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834. Sanitary districts covered England in Ireland three years later; the replacement boards were each entitled to levy their own rate in the parish. The church rate ceased to be levied in many parishes and became voluntary from 1868; the ancient parishes diverged into two distinct, nearly overlapping, systems of parishes during the 19th century. The Poor Law Amendment Act 1866 declared all areas that levied a separate rate: C of E ecclesiastical parishes, extra-parochial areas and their analogue, chapelries, to be "civil parishes". To have collected rates this means these beforehand had their own vestries, boards or equivalent bodies; the Church of England parishes, which cover more than 99% of England, became termed "ecclesiastical parishes" and the boundaries of these soon diverged from those of the Ancient Parishes in order to reflect modern circumstances.
After 1921 each ecclesiastical parish has been the responsibility of the parochial church councils. In the late 19th century, most of the ancient irregularities inheri
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