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
Morton Bagot was lit by candles and this is still true today giving Winter services a very individual spiritual feeling. Details and times of services can be found on the arden marches churches website Behind the church there are earthworks which are believed to be the site of a castle or fortified manor house. Traces of a moat near Church farm may perhaps mark the site of a building described in the 17th century as Lord Carington's Lodge House, which was then the largest house in the village but has now quite disappeared.When assessed for the hearth tax it had 7 hearths.