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
Weston-on-the-Green Weston Manor House is a 15th- or early 16th-century building built for Osney Abbey's bailiff. It was built within a 13th-century moat, two sides of which survived until they were filled in. The house was re-fronted in the 16th century and entrance hall has a Tudor fireplace from about this period. In 1665 the house was assessed at 20 hearths for Charles II's hearth tax. The panelling of the drawing room dates from the reign of William III and Mary II just before the end of the 17th century. In about 1780 the 16th-century great hall was renovated with a