"Before 1210 Walter de Turberville, lord of Ansty manor, nominated a priest to serve the church. The advowson, although not expressly mentioned, passed with the manor to the Hospitallers in 1210. Despite the bishop of Salisbury's claim in 1243 that Herbert Poore, bishop of Salisbury, had been patron before 1210, until the Dissolution the prior of St. John of Jerusalem in England, in accordance with papal privileges conferred on the Hospitallers in the 12th century, was appropriate rector and patron and exercised within the parish jurisdiction reserved elsewhere to the ordinary. The priors appointed to serve the church chaplains who, as in 1497, may have held the cure for life. The prior's rights passed in 1546 to John Zouche and descended with Ansty manor. The lords, from 1598 or earlier Roman Catholics, continued to exercise peculiar jurisdiction and appointed salaried chaplains from the later 16th century to the earlier 19th. In the earlier 19th century they delegated appointments to the rural dean of Chalke. On the death in 1877 of the last chaplain so appointed, John, Baron Arundell, declined to appoint or pay a chaplain.The vicar of Tisbury, at the request of the bishop of Salisbury, served the cure without payment from 1878 until 1898. By an Act of 1898 Lord Arundell's peculiar jurisdiction was abolished and the living became a presentative vicarage within the jurisdiction of the ordinary, and in the same year the university of Oxford, in place of the patron, Lord Arundell, presented as vicar the incumbent of Swallowcliffe, to whom in 1909 and earlier various diocesan societies and Queen Anne's Bounty made small grants for taking duty there. The vicarages were held in plurality until united in 1924 as the benefice of Swallowcliffe with Ansty in the gift of the bishop of Salisbury, patron of Swallowcliffe. In 1975 Tisbury vicarage was added and the benefice of Tisbury and Swallowcliffe with Ansty was formed. The three ecclesiastical parishes were then united. Chilmark rectory was added in 1976 and the new benefice of Tisbury was created. The incumbent of Tisbury and Swallowcliffe with Ansty became the first team rector in the team ministry established for it.
Chaplains were mentioned in the later 13th century. In 1338 the stipend was £1 6s. 8d. yearly, and in 1497 the chaplain received £2 13s. 4d., a room and his keep in the preceptory, and clothing. A stipend of £6 was reserved for a chaplain from the farm of the rectory in 1540–1. The patrons paid the chaplains a stipend which varied from £10 in 1622, to £11 in 1694–5 and in 1736, and to £20 in 1772. After the Reformation the stipend was sometimes linked to the value of the tithes paid at Ansty, but only c. 1594 and from c. 1829 until the stipend was withdrawn in 1877 is the chaplain known to have received the full rent paid by the lessees of the tithes.
Chaplains may have lived in the preceptory until the Dissolution. In 1594 the lord of the manor as patron provided a house, but not thereafter. John Archer, appointed in 1624, was accused of never preaching and of hindering others from doing so. He was ejected c. 1646 and replaced by a chaplain who signed the Concurrent Testimony in 1648. The church was notorious for clandestine marriages in the later 17th century, presumably because it was inadequately served and within the jurisdiction of a Roman Catholic layman. William Anderson, chaplain of Ansty from 1706 or earlier until 1714, lived in the parish. The chaplain who served the cure c. 1758 and in 1783 was also assistant curate of Baverstock and Compton Chamberlayne. In 1783 he held Sunday services at Ansty alternately in the morning and afternoon and, for the 20 communicants in the parish, celebrated communion at Christmas, Easter, Whitsun, and Michaelmas. The perpetual curate, from 1868 styled vicar, of Swallowcliffe, who served Ansty from 1846 to 1877, held an afternoon service attended by a congregation of 160 on Census Sunday, 1851. In 1864 he held services, at which he preached, at the same times as in 1783. That only some 80 people attended them he attributed to the fact that half the inhabitants of Ansty were Roman Catholic. He held additional services during Lent and Holy Week and celebrated communion every six or seven weeks and at Christmas, Easter, and Whitsun and on Trinity Sunday. Most of those living in Ansty were still Roman Catholics in the earlier 20th century and congregations were consequently small.
The church of ST. JAMES, so dedicated in 1763, is built of ashlar and has a chancel and a nave with north and south transepts. The south wall of the nave may be that of the church built before 1210. The chancel may have been rebuilt to its present length in the 14th century. A two-storeyed porch was built on the north side of the nave in the 15th century, and in the 16th windows were renewed. The church was partly rebuilt in 1842, when the porch was demolished and the north transept, with a north door, was built at the east end of the nave. A western bell turret was added and in it a bell cast by Robert Wells (fl. 1760–80) was hung. In 1878 the south transept was built. It may have been then that most of the windows were replaced by others in a 13th-century style, and that the arches leading into the chancel and the transepts were made uniform. Other restorations were undertaken in 1917 and in 1965 when the roofs of the nave and the south transept were renewed.
In 1553 the king's commissioners took away plate weighing 2 oz. and left a chalice. A pewter cup, flagon, and plate were lost c. 1840. Registrations, made very irregularly, survive from 1654 for births and after the Restoration for baptisms, and from 1655 for marriages and burials.
SOURCE - (
visit link)
Further reading - (
visit link)