Public Worship of God, 1645, Robert Parker and Anne Vicars were married on the 24th of May 1647, according to the Directory." Amongst the Entry of Burials we made a note of the following:—"Thomas Parker was buried in his mother's garden, April 15, 1681." It seems to have been not a very uncommon thing at the period for persons to be buried in gardens, burial in a churchyard being considered by some as flavouring too much of Popery! This was the second record of such an interment we had come upon within a week. Beckingham, we learnt, was five miles from a railway; it looked a thousand to us, though when we came to think of it we had to confess that we had never been so far from a railway in our lives, except when on the mid-Atlantic! It used to be called "Beckingham-behind-the-Times," the rector said. Well, it does not look as though it were much ahead of them now! It is a primitive place, without the virtue of being picturesque.
Next morning our kind host with thoughtful intent took us out to call on some of his oldest parishioners, the youngest of whom was eighty-two, in case we might gather something of interest from their conversation. One old man we visited was eighty-nine, and his wife was eighty-five. His father and grandfather had lived and died in Beckingham, he told us, and though close upon ninety he still managed to do all the work on a garden of over an acre. He had only travelled in a train once, and that was to London; he had only smoked once, and then he smoked five ounces of tobacco right
