th ij dores to kepe in the
evidence of the Churche and j great old arke and certain olde
Almaries, and in the house afore the Chapter house j old irebounde
cofre having hie feet and rings of iron in the endes thereof to heve
it bye."

"It is almost exceptional to find any parish of five hundred
inhabitants which does not possess a parish chest. The parish
chest of the parish in which I am writing is now in the vestry of
the church here. It has been used for generations as a coal box.
It is exceptional to find anything so useful as wholesome fuel
inside these parish chests; their contents have in the great
majority of instances utterly perished, and the miserable
destruction of those interesting parish records testifies to the
almost universal neglect which they have suffered at the hands,
not of the parsons, who as a rule have kept with remarkable care
the register books for which they have always been responsible,
but of the churchwardens and overseers, who have let them perish
without a thought of their value.

"As a rule the old parish chests have fallen to pieces, or worse,
and their contents have been used to light the church stove,
except in those very few cases where the chests were furnished
with two or more keys, each key being of different wards from the
other, and each being handed over to a different functionary when
the time of the parish meeting came round."[32]

[32] _The Parish Councillor_, an article by Dr. Jessop, September
20, 1895.

When the ornaments and vestments were carted away from the church in
the time of Edward VI, many of the church chests lost their use, and
were sold or destroyed, the poorest only being kept for registers and
documents. Very magnificent were some of these chests which have
survived, such as that at Icklington, Suffolk, Church Brampton,
Northants, Rugby, Westminster Abbey, and Chichester. The old chest at
Heckfield may have been one of those ordered in the reign of King John
for the collection of the alms of the faithful for the fifth crusade.
The artist, Mr. Fred Roe, has written a valuable work on chests, to
which those who desire to know about these interesting objects can
refer.

Another much diminishing store of treasure belonging to our churches
is the church plate. Many churches possess some old plate--perhaps a
pre-Reformation chalice. It is worn by age, and the clergyman,
ignorant of its value, takes it to a jewelle