The Ash register books were kept almost exclusively to their primary purposes and so are not rich in the miscellanea that crept into the ancient registers of many parishes. Briefs, for example, find no mention. Perhaps Ash, like Samuel Pepys, decided to have no truck with them; much more probably, they were entered either in the churchwardens’ accounts or, as happened at Wrotham, in a special book. However, use was made of the first register book to record for posterity certain charitable gifts or bequests made either to the parish or the church and mostly being of a perpetual nature. The benefactors who thus achieved honourable mention were William Warren the elder, Nicholas Coveney, Thomas Comfort, John Walter, Richard Miller and John Sedley. The charity founded by John Walter figures again in the second register book, which also contains references to another charity, that of Mr Nutbrown. Unfortunately, Mr Nutbrown’s beneficence had not been directed towards Ash; on the contrary, the parish’s role in relation to his

charity was that of perpetual subscriber.
   First of the benefactions recorded was ‘a legacie in ye last will & Testament of Wm. Warren the elder of. Ashe deceessed’, who by his will of 31 January 1569 left an annual twenty pence for the poor of Ash, to be paid for ever. The churchwardens or collectors for the poor were to receive this each year at the Feast of All Saints and to distribute it to ‘the most poore & impotente’ of the parish. If the money was not forthcoming, the churchwardens or collectors were empowered to distrain in or upon a croft of land called Holmes croft, which Warren had purchased from William Hastlin of Wrotham, and to lead, drive or carry away ‘the distralne & the distresse ther so taken', the same to be retained until the twenty pence, with ‘the arearages’, had been paid. To leave no doubt on the score of veracity, there followed the names of five witnesses, William Rolfe, John Warren, Augustine Rolfe, Thomas Thurrooke and Thomas Knowe, all