BAPTISMS
“ Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not for of
such is the Kingdom of God”—S. Mark, x, 14.
September 5—Katie, daughter of John and Elizabeth Smith, 6, Albert
Square, Stretford, Manchester, bread van driver.
September 15—Doris Annie, daughter of James Robert and Esther Worgan,
Bream’s Tufts, colliery weighman.
September 18—Hilda May, daughter of Henry and Eliza Ann Preest, Mill
Hill, collier.
BURIALS.
“ Here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come.”—HEB.,
xiii, 14
September 18—Thyrza Lewis Bream Tufts, aged 66 years
September 27—John Phillips, Bream, aged 58 years.
SPECIAL NOTICES.
October 18—Feast of S Luke the Evangelist
October 28—Feast of S.S. Simon and Jude
November 1—Feast of All Saints.
MISSION VISIT.
The Vicarage, Sept. 28, 1901.
My dear Parishioners,
You will see a large bill posted in the Church Porch calling your attention
to the fact that a Mission Visit will be paid to this Parish from Saturday,
December 14th, to Monday December 16th.
The Missioners who will be sent to us are the Rev. Henry Proctor and the Rev.
E. H. Hawkins; and both they and I are very anxious that their visit should
be the means of a real spiritual awakening of those who are careless amongst
us as well as of a deepening of the spiritual life of those who are trying
to live near to God.
The actual time that the Missioners will spend with us will be very short,
but if we can prepare for their visit, it will, I trust, be very fruitful.
For the purpose of preparation Mr. Proctor and Mr. Hawkins are about to send
me a letter and a prayer, and I am going to try and leave these personally
in every house in Bream, so that the prayer may be used and the letter read
in every family before the time of the Mission Visit comes. Lists of Services
will also be issued in due course, in the distribution of which I must ask
the help of the laity, and more especially the working men of the Parish, if
they will undertake this good work.
I will only ask you now to remember this Mission Visit in your prayers, and
to ask God’s Blessing upon this effort for the conversion of sinners,
and The strengthening of God's servants in Bream.
Your affectionate Vicar,
ERNEST F. EALES
HARVEST THANKSGIVINGS.
The Harvest thanksgiving at Yorkley Wood commenced with a celebration of the
Holy Communion on Tuesday, September 24th, at 10 a.m, which was followed
by Evening Service at 7p.m. a very helpful sermon being by the Rev. B. Roberts,
of All Saints', Viney Hill. The decorations were good, and the music nicely
rendered.
At the Parish Church, on September 26th, the first service was Choral Communion at 7.30 a.m., Woodward’s beautiful music being very nicely sung by the Communicants without Choir. The Evening Service was at 7 p.m. followed by an eloquent address by the Rev. Lionel Ford, of Alvington. The decorations were better than usual, which is saying a good deal, and, thanks to Mr. Kidson’s unfailing kindness and constant endeavours, the music was thoroughly congregational and devotional. The Vicar wishes to thank the Church decorators for their labour of love in adorning the Sanctuaries of God, as well as Surgeon-General Cook and Mrs. Hughes for grapes, Mr. Miles, of Noxon, and Mrs. Phillips for corn, and. the many others who brought offerings to the Church, who were surely more in number and more enthusiastic than ever before.
VOLUNTEER CHURCH PARADE.
On Sunday, September 22nd, the Bream Volunteers, supported by some few from
Coleford, and headed by the Bream Band, paraded to Church at 6 p.m., under
the command of Captain Buchanan. The service hour was altered from 6.30 to
6 for the convenience of the Coleford men, as we were all ready to meet the
wishes of our gallant defenders as far as possible.
VISITATION OF THE SICK
“ Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the Church and
let them pray over him, (S. James, 5—14.) When any person is sick notice
shall be given thereof to the Minister of the Parish,” (Book of Common
Prayer.) In accordance with these instructions of the Bible and the Prayer Book
the Vicar hopes that parishioners will kindly let him know of all cases of serious
sickness with which they may become acquainted, either in their own or in their
neighbours families.
HISTORICAL SCRAPS.
The extract from the Bream Chapel Deed of October 1st 1742, is interesting,
as being the earliest written evidence, so far as I am aware, of the existence
of the Chapel of Bream, which it states to have been standing in 1618, though
not apparently first erected then :— "The Chapel Haye was in the
Crown, and was on June 30th of the16th year of James1st (1618) granted by
that King, by letters patent, to Wiliiam Wintour and William Bell .... and
by them conveyed to Thomas Donning, then of Bream who made seats in the Chapel
at his own charges and caused the first letters of his name to be cut on
them and conveyed the said Chapel and Chapel Haye to certain persons in trust
for the landholders and inhabitants of Bream who ever since used the said
Chapel as a private chapel . . for hearing sermons and for Public Prayers
. . by such, Ministers as they could get . . . being mostly the Newland Lecturers.” &c.
1. The Chapel Haye, (by which name, perhaps, the whole of the present Churchyard was originally known, though afterwards only what is now the Upper Churchyard was so styled) is here said to have been in the Crown. As a matter of fact, a great deal of property in this neighbourhood used to belong to the Crown, for in the year 1427 or 1428 the large estate which John, Duke of Bedford, owned in the Forest of Dean, and in the Hundred of St. Briavels, passed at his death to his nephew, King Henry the Sixth, and thus practically the whole Tything of Bream became the property of the Crown, and seems to have remained so for many years.
2. By his Letters Patent of 1618 (mentioned above). King James1st granted to William Wintour and. William Bell a very considerable amount of this Crown property, in trust, that they should convey certain parts of it to certain individuals named in the Patent, of whom Thomas Donning was one. It is interesting to find in this Patent such well-known places as Chelfidge, Saunders Myne, Great and Little Rylands, Blistors, Ginny Croft, The Hayes—can this be the Chapel Haye ?—Newerne, Wheatcroft, Paseley, Brockhollands and Pastor’s or Paster’s Hill, and such well known personal names as Edmund Keere, John Vaughan, William Meek, Richard Carpender, Robert Phillips, George, William, and Warren Gough. Some of the names indeed are spelt differently from now, but it is easy to recognize the place, and it is possible the persons mentioned may have been the ancestors of families of the same names living here to-day.
3. In these Letters Patent there is no mention whatever of the Chapel of Bream, though the fact (mentioned above) of Thomas Donning having conveyed the Chapel along with the Chapel Haye to certain persons, &c., seems to show that it must have come legally into his hands in the same way as the Chapel Haye and other property did—that is, by virtue of the Letters Patent. It seems probable, therefore, that prior to 1618 the Chapel itself was or had become, Crown property. The previous existence of the Chapel is clearly indicated by the words of the Deed (above quoted), which state that Thomas Donning "made seats in the Chapel," such words referring plainly to the furnishing and restoration of an old building, not to the erection of a new one.
4 But, this being the case, the question remains—Why did the
Letters Patent of King James1st make no mention of the Chapel? I can
only suppose that the Chapel was not mentioned for one of the following
reasons, viz., either the Chapel was at that time private property or
Church property, and so not in the Crown; or else, being in the Crown
(as we have seen above to have been likely), it was yet not thought worthy
to be mentioned as a Chapel, but having become dilapidated. was included
in the list of barns and other farm buildings &c., which the Patent
refers to as Mill, Houses, Cottages, Barns and Stables. That there was
an old Chapel on the site of the present Church before the Reformation
has, I think, been sufficiently proved in our previous paper upon the
subject of the Architectural Features of the Church; and that so small
and unimportant and unendowed a Chapel should have ceased to be used
for worship and have been secularized and turned into a barn during the
troublous times of the Reformation is all too likely to be true, and
is simply just what happened to many such Chapels in England at that
time. And, if this were so, all honour to William Wintour and William
Bell, and to King James 1st himself, who were the means of restoring
the Chapel to the worship of God and for the use of the Parishioners;
honour also to Thomas Donning, who furnished it at his own expense for
the services af the Church and the comfort of the worshippers.
E.F.E.
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