Hearth tax significant proportion of householders were not liable to pay at all. The hearth tax was much resented because it often entailed inspection of the interior of dwellings by the sub-collectors and petty constables, who had legal authority to enter every property to check on the number of hearths. Some people stopped up their chimneys so that the tax was not due on them, but where this was discovered by the assessors the tax was doubled. On 31 July 1684, a fire in Churchill, Oxfordshire, destroyed 20 houses and many other buildings, and killed four people. It was apparently caused by
Skinnand down, however, during the Civil War and, by the time of the Hearth Tax returns of 1665, there were just three houses in Skinnand. Details about the Norman-built Anglican church of Skinnand are sketchy, although it was reputedly dedicated to St Matthew and burned down by Oliver Cromwell's forces in the 1640s. Historical records certainly show that it had begun to fall into ruins in the 17th century - at around the time of the English Civil War. The "Glebe Terrier" documents of 1700 recorded: "The church was in ruins, no house for the rector, more than this we find