St Margaret's Church, Bilsthorpe, Notts.

Image: © David Hallam-Jones Taken: 16 Jan 2015

Steps leading up to the church. St Margaret's Church is situated at the summit of Church Hill. The Rev. William Mompesson (of Eyam, the plague village) was the rector of both Wellow + Bilsthorpe & Eakring in the mid-1600s. The practice of “a living” being held in plurality, usually within that of the more populous parish, was apparently a common occurrence until this time. Later on in the same decade, Mompesson made his ill-fated move with his young family to Eyam, Derbyshire. From 1671 Mompesson held the parishes of Bilsthorpe and Eakring in plurality whilst residing most of the time at Eakring. He resigned the Bilsthorpe rectory in 1688 and at the end of July in that year Rev John Raworth was instituted as his successor. Raworth had been curate here for five years and less than a year after becoming rector, he married Elizabeth Mompesson, who had been sent away from Eyam as a 3 year old to escape the 1666 plague. At the time of her dispatch, the Rev. John Raworth was the ten year old son of the Eyam schoolmaster.

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