Scandals

During the last decade of the fourteenth century, the sudden disappearance of the vicar at that time caused sensation in the village. 

In those days, with the absence of transport facilities, village life was absolutely self contained and the absence of any parishioner was quickly noted

It was usual for people, in the event of such occurrences, to take stock of their possessions to check nothing was missing, though it is unlikely that the vicar would be suspected of theft.

The whole village assembled on the bridge over the river to lament the absence of the vicar, and to discuss what should be done.  Great was their consternation when it was learnt that the body of the reverend gentleman had been found in the river.  A commentator at the time noted that,

"John de Wadyngham was found by an inquisition to have closed his last day within the last three months by submersion in a certain water called Sore near the mill of Cotes in the diocese of Lincoln.  Because on the Saturday, Sunday and Monday after the feast of St Hilary he was found dead in the said water where he was submerged."

The reasons behind Wadyngham's death were never revealed.  It was certainly not down to money or financial difficulties as a list of the vicar's possessions proved beyond question that he was a man of some substance.

Around 1835, more excitement was caused in the village when the vicar at the time Richard Gwatkin announced his intention to marry Ann Middleton, the eighteen year old daughter of a labourer at the nearby lime works.

The Middleton family, of which Ann was a member, lived in the house called Jerusalem, which once stood where the roundabout now is as you enter Barrow from Quorn.

Gwatkin realised that Ann, with little experience of life, was not fitted for the position and responsibilities of being a Vicar's wife and sent her off to be educated for a year.
The were married at the Parish Church on January the twenty second 1838.

The marriage was not met with the approval of some of the local gentry who voiced their concerns on the matter in no uncertain terms.  The vicar and his young wife, however, refused to be upset or intimidated by this and remained in Barrow for 18 years after their marriage.

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