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Rectors of Chilton continued

In the nineteenth century another long-standing incumbent was Charles Gaisford, who was rector from 1808 to 1857. He was evidently unimpressed with the rectory, for in 1816 he was licensed by the Bishop of Salisbury to absent himself from the benefice for two years "on account of the unfitness of the parsonage house". Hewett suggests that he may have stayed away longer than two years: writing in 1844, he asserted that "no rector has resided here within the memory of man".

Gaisford was succeeded by Edward Morland Chaplin, a kinsman of the Morland family who owned the manor. Appointed rector in 1857 at the age of twenty five, his youthful dynamism must have been a striking contrast to his predecessor: in his first full year he conducted 25 baptisms (there had been only four the previous year). The fabric of the building was another object of his enthusiasm: before long he subjected the diocesan authorities to a barrage of requests, which resulted in the repair of the nave roof in 1876. He died in 1877 aged 45 and is commemorated in the east window.

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