especially high toll amongst illegitimate children. In 1761, an exceptional year, the fourteen people buried included nine children, eight of them infants.
   At the other end. of the scale, many appear to have lived to ripe old ages, though before 1790 a precise age was seldom entered and before 1713 that was never done. The first exception, made in the latter year, was when Dorothy, wife of Thomas Godden, achieved a longevity that could not be left unmentioned; she died ‘ag: 91 half’. Thereafter, ages were given when they were thought sufficiently remarkable and, very occasionally, for some other reason. Whether or not the age was given, a name was sometimes prefaced by the word ‘Old’. The next to be buried after Mrs Godden was ‘Old Henry Salmon’, whose age perhaps fell too short of hers to merit precision, if indeed It was known.
   The permutations of life and death within a single family are instanced by the first two entries made in the register for 1766 ‘Lydia Oliver, infant’ and ‘Mary Oliver of Hartley aged 99’. In that year, as in 1761, fourteen people were buried, but infant mortality was not the cause. Mary Bennett of Ridley, aged eighty-four, was buried. on the same day as Mary Oliver and before the year was out they had been joined by Thomas Scudder of Stansted, aged eighty-one, whose burial in the church

they forgot to register, Richard Wallis, aged eighty-six and Dame Waller, aged ninety-one.
   No centenarian is recorded, but beside Dorothy Godden, Mary Oliver and Dame Waller two others were credited with four score and ten years or more; they were Mary Benge, widow, who died in 1733 at the age of ninety, and John Hollands, who died in 1798 aged ninety-seven. Of the latter the rector, Mr Lambard, wrote in the register that he ‘had been blind 15 years but of a remarkably cheerful & pious frame of mind’. A good man, John Hollands.
   Although the nonagenarians included only one male, the thirty-eight octogenarians were equally divided between the sexes. Some of the ancients may have scraped into their classes through the widespread practice of treating the year of the age as the actual age.
   The prefix ‘Goodwyfe’ for married women was used in 1576 for goodwives Lenam, Williams, Greenwell and Kittle, but this use was so rare at Ash that it may reflect in these instances the predilection of a temporary curate. However, as late as 1714 ‘Old Good: Ann Wouldham’ is found.
   ‘Mother’ as a prefix occurs only twice. ‘Mother Averill wydew was buried on St Stephens day being Sunday Elizabeth 24’, which unusual