Badsey, and I may say that no two
people ever worked together with greater harmony.

The restoration had been debated for many years; the ancient church
was sadly dilapidated, and disfigured by an ugly gallery at the west
end of the nave, which obscured the finest arch in the building,
leading into the tower; and the incident which brought the matter
within the range of possibility was romantic. The Vicar succeeded
quite unexpectedly to a large inheritance; the news reached him and
his wife, who was away from home at the time, simultaneously. The
letters they wrote to each other on their good fortune crossed in the
post, and characteristically each wrote "Badsey Church must now be
restored." Soon afterwards the Vicar came to my house and, sitting
down at my table, wrote me a cheque for L500 to start the fund.

On the advice of the patrons of the living--the Dean and Chapter of
Christ Church, Oxford--we invited Mr. Thomas Graham Jackson, now Sir
Thomas Graham Jackson, R.A., to undertake the duties of architect. His
work was well known at Oxford at the time, as the beautiful New
Schools had just been completed from his designs; we were also most
fortunate in obtaining the services of Mr. Thomas Collins, of
Tewkesbury, as builder. Mr. Collins was devoted to church
architecture, and the financial consideration of such work was to him
quite secondary to the pleasure he experienced as a connoisseur in
restoring to the dignity and beauty of the past any ecclesiastical
building of distinguished interest. The first estimate was, I think,
L1,500, exclusive of architect's fees, but when the work was completed
we had expended in all a sum of over L2,130. We did not finally clear
off the debt until 1894, nine years after the reopening of the church,
and since then a considerable further sum has been expended in
rehanging the old bells and adding two new ones to make up the full
peal of eight.

It was delightful to experience the willingness of everybody to help;
subscriptions, large and small, came in readily at the very outset,
and this part of the work never became arduous until the last few
hundreds had to be raised. Most of us experienced the truth of the
proverb _Bis dat qui cito dat_, but in a different sense from that
which usually commends it, for many who gave quickly not only
literally gave twice, but three times or more. Bazaars, concerts, and
entertainments of all kinds were undertaken by the parishioners, a sum
of