Incipit: The Accompt for the years 1685. Receipts. The Rent of the ground. 6--13--0.

Note: Mr Cooke[e] of Storige [Storridge, Herefs] is a tenant & buys coppices 1741-1761 (see 1729).

Wanting leaves 1-13 (&, presumably, a blank or title to fill out the gathering). Missing leaves after 1697, in 1773 and 1779, with no apparent loss of text.

Make-up: 1685-1714: Recto has accounts and trustees' names; verso has names of recipients. 1714-1784: Double-page opening: left-hand names; right-hand accounts.

Among the trustees are two or more named Richard Hill, Richard Long, and George Hales, and William and Richard Fifield, John Woodyatt, James Smith, and Thomas James. There is almost always some sort of Hill among the trustees, or mentioned in the accounts. Judging from the signatures, one Richard Hill died after 1722, and another one took over. Leonard Hill begins to be one of the Trustees in 1763; after 1768 no Trustee is mentioned but Leonard Hill, who is keeping the account, and disbursements are only occasionally mentioned; the accounts 1803-1805 are signed R. P (?) Hill, and are receipts of rent for lands "belonging to my late father ...called the Poor Land."

Place: The location of the charity is unnamed; but the primary piece of land is at Cradley (see 1728). All the meeting-places named are convenient to Cradley, Herefordshire; Stiffords bridge is a hamlet with an inn a mile from Cradley. Just north of Stiffords is Halesend; one of the Longs is identified as "of Halesend." The bookseller identified the area as the Halesown district of Worcester-shire, presumably thinking of the better-known Cradley in the north of Worcestershire; but the place names do not agree.

Since each year takes a leaf, the accounts probably began circa 1670.