A. W. H. says, "In the case of many parishes it is stated [in _Domesday Book_], that there was a church there: is it considered _conclusive_ authority that there was not one, if it is not mentioned in _Domesday Book_?" This question has, I doubt not, often engaged the attention of antiquaries; and I am somewhat surprised that the Query has elicited no reply. The conclusion has often been drawn that, no church being mentioned, none existed before the survey. It would appear this conclusion has been an erroneous one. In the last volume issued by the Chetham Society (_Documents relating to the Priory of Penwortham, and other Possessions in Lancashire of the Abbey of Evesham_, edited by W. A. Hulton, Esq.) that point is ably discussed; and as Mr. Hulton's views on a subject of so much interest cannot but be valuable, I venture to extract them, as worthy of a place in "N. & Q." He says: "Donations of churches with tithes are made directly after the survey of _Domesday_ was taken. And yet that survey is entirely silent as to their existence. Similar omissions have given rise to doubts, whether the institution of our parochial economy had been carried out to its full extent previous to the Conquest, and whether we are not indebted to the Normans for its full perfection. Such doubts are unfounded.... There is nothing in _Domesday_ to justify the doubts alluded to. A consideration of the objects of that survey will dissipate them: the purpose was principally financial. It was directed so as to obtain a correct account of the taxable property within the kingdom. And it was immaterial whether the proceeds were paid altogether to the owner, or a definite portion was diverted into other channels. Therefore those churches which were endowed only with tithes of the surrounding districts, as Eccleston and Croston, Penwortham and Leyland, in Leyland Hundred, and Rochdale and Eccles, in Salford Hundred, were unnoticed, although the two first-named churches were granted by Roger de Poictou, with their tithes and other appurtenances, to the Priory of Lancaster; and the pages of the _Coucher Book of Whalley_ prove the two latter churches to have existed at a date perhaps anterior to the Conquest. But the case was different when a church was endowed with glebe-land. Such a church appeared in the light of a landowner, and in that character is its existence notified. Thus, in modern Lancashire, south of the Ribble, the churches of Wigan and Winwick, Childwall, Walton, Warrington, Manchester, Blackburn, and Whalley are expressly named in _Domesday_, but invariably in connexion with the ownership of land. It seems clear, therefore, that the silence of _Domesday_ cannot be urged as a proof of the {356} non-existence of a church, or of the subsequent grant of those rights and privileges by which its due efficiency is maintained."--_Introd._, p. xxiii.