Randwick: Church

CHURCH.

The church at Randwick was first mentioned as one of the chapels belonging to Standish church in the early 13th century. (fn. 1). A pension received by the Vicar of Standish according to the ordination of Standish vicarage in 1348 (fn. 2) was said in 1535 to be for finding chaplains for Randwick and the other chapels. (fn. 3) Randwick had a chaplain in 1498, (fn. 4) and the chapel had burial rights by 1547. (fn. 5) In 1650 Randwick was said to be fit to be a separate parish, (fn. 6) and in 1720, as a result of a grant from Queen Anne's Bounty, a perpetual curacy was established, to which the Vicar of Standish nominated. (fn. 7) The living was declared a vicarage in 1866, (fn. 8) and has remained in the gift of the Vicar of Standish.

Before the early 18th century the income of the curates of Randwick was £8 8s. received from the Vicar of Standish. (fn. 9) In 1720 the curacy was augmented by a grant of £200 from the Bounty to meet an equal benefaction by the bishop. There were further grants in 1765, 1810, and 1813, totalling £1,000, and others were made at the time of the building of a new glebe house in 1844. (fn. 10) The curate was said to have at one time occupied a room in the church house destroyed in 1782, (fn. 11) and attempts were being made to find a site for a parsonage in 1816. (fn. 12) By 1736 glebe comprising c. 60 ridges of arable and c. 16 a. of meadow and pasture, most of it in Haresfield, had been purchased; (fn. 13) in 1825 another 33 a. in Withington were purchased, but by 1828 some of the glebe acquired by the earlier purchase had apparently been sold. (fn. 14) The vicarial tithes of Randwick were conveyed to the perpetual curacy by the Vicar of Standish c. 1830; (fn. 15) in 1841 they were commuted for a corn-rent of £72. (fn. 16) The curate also benefited from four charities founded in the 17th and 18th centuries; (fn. 17) his income from this source in the mid-19th century was c. £9. (fn. 18) In 1779 the value of the living was said to be c. £60, (fn. 19) but in 1811 c. £50; (fn. 20) in 1856 it was £128. (fn. 21)

Sixteenth-century incumbents, usually called curates, apparently provided indifferent service. The chapel had no bible in 1548, (fn. 22) and in 1551 the curate John Jones was described as poor in doctrine. (fn. 23) Thomas Mill was deprived for marriage in 1554. In 1563 it was said that there had been no sermon for years and the Queen's Injunctions were not read. In 1570 the curate did not teach the catechism, and over the next two years gave no alms. (fn. 24) Randwick had no separate curate in 1650 or 1661, (fn. 25) but there was one in 1678. (fn. 26) Thomas Rawlins, licensed in 1720, was in debt for £200 in 1743 when the profits of the living were sequestrated. (fn. 27) In the 1780s both perpetual curate and assistant curate lived outside the parish. Thomas Warren, perpetual curate from 1800, (fn. 28) held another curacy and a lectureship in Lincolnshire and was given leave of absence in 1811. Strickland Neville was living at Painswick in 1817 but an assistant curate lived in the parish. John Elliot, licensed in 1819, lived at Stroud until the glebe house was built; (fn. 29) he died in 1891 after an incumbency of 72 years. (fn. 30) One service a Sunday was held in 1750; (fn. 31) Robert Ellis's charity for the curate founded in 1760 stipulated that he should preach and read prayers twice on Sunday, (fn. 32) and two services were being held c. 1825. (fn. 33)

The church of ST. JOHN (fn. 34) comprises nave, chancel, west tower, and south aisle. The tower is of three stages with battlements and has windows of the 14th century. The north wall of the nave had a large 15th- or early-16th-century window which was enlarged in 1771, (fn. 35) and the east window of the chancel had three small lights with four-centred heads below a dripmould. (fn. 36) In 1724 a double transept with tall round-headed windows was added on the south of the church. (fn. 37) Galleries were erected in the church in 1704, 1770, and 1824. (fn. 38) In 1823 the church was enlarged, and in 1825 the chancel was rebuilt by Lord Sherborne. (fn. 39) The church was restored in the mid 1860s when a new south porch was built and three new windows inserted in the north wall of the nave. (fn. 40) Between 1894 and 1896 the south aisle was rebuilt as a memorial to the late vicar, John Elliot. (fn. 41)

There are four bells: two are medieval, one was cast by Abraham Rudhall in 1701, and another given in 1717. (fn. 42) The plate was stolen c. 1785, (fn. 43) and a chalice dated 1783 was presumably acquired then; a paten was given in 1828 and another in 1891. (fn. 44) The registers begin in 1662. (fn. 45)