This day in 1759: diary of an Oxfordshire Rector
Friday, February 6th, 2009 by lunamanMr Salmon went on with measuring the Glebe, but my Lord set out for London. Hooper brought me a Draught from my Lord for £30 but Self paid only £20 & at the same time paid him a Bill deliver’d in by Verney with a vast Abatement. Thomas Silvester sent Richard to my Lord’s House instead of sending him down to the Field. Paid Betty Overton a Quarter’s Wages.
From The Deserted Village, The Diary of an Oxfordshire rector James Newton of Nuneham Courtenay 1736-86, Alan Sutton, 1992, edited by Gavin Hannah.
I’m reading this as research for an installation piece I’ll be producing in July at the Harcourt Arboretum at Nuneham Courtenay. Newton was rector during the period when the village of Nuneham Courtenay was demolished and moved, to provide Lord Harcourt with an unobscured view of the spires of Oxford from his manor.