NEWTON CHURCH

THE INCOME OF NEWTON CHURCH.

The living of Newton Parish in 1254 and also in 1291, was worth £ 5. According to the Valor Ecclesiasticus of 1535-6, the income was as follows :-

As may be seen, the Archdeacon of Llandaff received a considerable payment from the Rector of Newton Church. With the passage of time, the monetary status of the Parish was increased; a survey of the Pembroke Manor (1628), and of the Herbert Manor (1673), reveal it as approximately £80, and by the year 1819, during the incumbency of the Rev Robert Knight, it attained the value of £ 371.

The year 1846 saw the introduction of rent charges instead of tithes, the details being as follows : "The annual sum of one penny for each and every garden in lieu of the Tithes of the Produce thereof. One penny for each and every milch cow. One penny for each and every barren cow in lieu of the Tithes of milk thereof. One half-penny for each and every calf dropped within the Parish in lieu of the Tithes of Calves. All other Tithes, except the Tithe of wood, arising from and accruing due upon all the Lands of the said parish, are payable in kind." To estimate the equivalent sum payable in cash for the tithe on the produce, the area cultivated or used was measured and the yield was ascertained as follows :

The Income, accordingly, depended upon the price per bushel of corn. By an award of the Tithe Commissioners in 1846, a sum of Four Hundred Pounds was to be paid to the Rector instead of all the tithes, besides the sum of fourteen shillings, to be paid to him Instead of the tithes on the Glebe lands.

In 1864, the Commissioners, appointed under the Enclosure Act of 1860, made an Award which directed the Overseers of the Poor in the Parish to pay, to the Incumbent, an annual sum of Ten Shillings for land which they received in trust to be used as allotments for the labouring poor. To the Parishioners, this assignment was a tithe on common land which, it was claimed, was free of such charges, and the payment has not been made.

The price of corn varied, and, at times, reduced the income very considerably, even to almost a half during the incumbency of the Rev. Holmes Morgan. At the Dis-establishment of the Church in Wales by the Act of 1914, the tithe was lost to the Church in Newton, and the assigned stipend is now based upon an ecclesiastical standard.

[Last Updated : 11 Nov 2002 by Gareth Hicks]