NEWS
Do come to the Organ recital by Dr David Flood at 3pm on Saturday 30thMay. David (cover photo), who was formerly Organist of Canterbury Cathedral, will play an exciting programme of music by Gigout, JS Bach, Vierne, Mendelssohn, Elgar, Rameau, Saint-Saens and Widor. A delicious Barsham tea will round off a fabulous afternoon. Tickets are not required. Donations are to go towards the cost of rethatching the nave roof.
The Ven Rich Henderson, Archdeacon of Suffolk, will preside at Patronal Evensong on Sunday 31st May at 6.30pm. Fizz and canapés will follow.
On the afternoon of Sunday 26th April, 20 people and four dogs from Cheryl’s church walking group enjoyed a sunny ramble through Barsham and Shipmeadow, following marsh-side tracks and paths along the higher ground with views across the valley. The walkers enjoyed an excellent Barsham tea at the church afterwards. By popular demand, the walk is to be repeated on Sunday 28th June, starting at the church at 2pm.
A sub-committee of the PCC has been set up to manage the recommendations in the architect’s Quinquennial Inspection Report. Should you want to know more, do speak to Malcolm.
The parish of All Saints Mettingham has merged with Holy Trinity Bungay. Now known as Holy Trinity Bungay with All Saints Mettingham, the parish has one PCC but both churches retain their own church wardens.
Peter Gascoyne has installed a camera and screen (visible in the cover photo) to enable the organist to follow the progress of the service at the altar. The PCC is grateful to Peter for his generosity and technical expertise.
Dominique is grateful for the generous donations that have funded the new swift boxes in the belfry. The electronic swift calls are working, and swifts have been spotted periodically over Barsham since Sunday 10th May.
The sales table organised by Sarah Jane raised a creditable £105.00.
Amy delivered 132 donated items to the Foodbank in April and the Rev’d Pam Bayliss continues to express warm appreciation for Barsham’s support.
FORWARD PLANNING
Church Walking Group, Sunday 28th June, 2pm at Barsham Church – ramble through Barsham and Shipmeadow.
Summer Lunch, Wednesday 1st July, 12.30pm at St Bartholomew’s Shipmeadow, at the kind invitation of Nick and Jenny Caddick. Tickets at £12.50 should be bought in advance from Bridget in June.
SNIPPETS – A thousand years of funding
Much has been written in recent times about the state of diocesan finances in the Church of England. Many Diocesan Boards of Finance are said to be operating in deficit and consequently there is concern about the ongoing affordability of clergy stipends. These are funded substantially from local congregational giving through the ‘Parish Share’. In recent years Diocesan Boards of Finance have been increasing the sums asked for in the Parish Share, but in many dioceses church attendance and regular giving are in decline, so the current model of funding clergy stipends looks unsustainable in the long term. There has been some internal debate in the Church over the tension between this looming crisis at local level and the apparent wealth of the national Church, which holds an endowment of approximately £10 billion. While some of this is tied up in pension funds, it has tended to be directed at strategic plans and short-term projects rather than sustaining parish worship, although last year the Church of England’s National Three Year Spending Plans 2026-28 included a significant financial input to local churches and parish clergy in deprived areas.
In fact, the present system of a centrally funded and standardised clergy stipend is relatively recent, dating from the 1970s. It replaced a decentralised system that had prevailed in one form or another for more than a thousand years in which the generosity of a stipend depended on the wealth of a benefice. The stipend was made up of income from tithes, glebe land, personal fees and sometimes historic endowments. Much depended on the size of the parish population and the extent and quality of its land.
From at least the 10th century in England, tithes had been a mandatory tax of 10% of the agricultural produce or income of all parishioners, paid in kind. Greater Tithes included everything that came from the ground – crops, hay, wood – and Lesser Tithes included things nourished by the ground – livestock and their produce. Rectors were entitled to both forms of tithe, and vicars only to the Lesser Tithes. If there was glebe (church-owned land) in the parish, a rector could generate income either by farming it directly or by renting it out, and this remained the case until the 1976 Endowments and Glebe Measure. The 80 acres of glebe in Barsham in 1846 were rated at £120 per annum (£12,324 in today’s values according to the Bank of England Inflation Calculator). Further personal income came from fees charged for baptisms, weddings and funerals and, in some churches, from pew rents. Some clergy supplemented their stipends by taking on additional roles, typically as schoolmasters or chaplains to institutions. The 19th century Rectors of Shipmeadow were chaplains to the neighbouring workhouse and in the 1850s to the Shipmeadow Penitentiary. A priest might also benefit from donations, bequests, or from endowments from a rich patron.
By the early 19th century, with widespread religious dissent, agricultural recession, urbanisation and industrialisation, the payment of agricultural tithes in kind had become unpopular and outdated. The 1836 Tithe Commutation Act overhauled the system, converting physical tithes into ‘tithe rentcharges’, a monetised payment linked to grain prices. The system of tithes was then dismantled in stages over the following century and a half. In 1891, for instance, the British Tithe Act restricted the payment of tithe rentcharges to landowners, exempting tenants. After rentcharges caused serious hardship for small farmers during the Depression of the 1930s, the 1936 Tithe Act abolished all existing tithe rentcharges and replaced them with a system of annuities payable by landowners to the State, which then compensated the Church – an arrangement that ended in 1977.
It seems almost unbelievable that the last vestige of a system of funding that had its origins as early as the 7th century, and was certainly well established by the 10thcentury, should have breathed its last just 50 years ago.
JUNE DIARY
Sunday 7th June – First Sunday after Trinity. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP), Barsham. Revd Jonathan Olanczuk SSC.
Sunday 14th June – Second Sunday after Trinity. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). Revd Canon John Fellows.
Sunday 21st June – Third Sunday after Trinity. 11.15am Sung Eucharist (BCP). Revd Desmond Banister SSC.
Sunday 28th June – Fourth Sunday after Trinity. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). Revd Graham Naylor.
Church correspondent: Robert Bacon 07867 306016, [email protected]