The earliest registers for the church begin on 30th March 1543 with the entry of the burial of Jane Clarke. The start of these registers may have been because of Thomas Cromwell’s injunction about 1539 following an edict of Henry VIII. The records are not quite complete with a few missing years.
Even in the existing registers there are gaps eg. no marriages recorded between 1555 and 1572, nor burials between 1551 and 1571. Possible reasons for this are
(i) that these early registers are copies of originals and errors were made in transcription; (ii) there being no resident priest these offices might have been carried out in other, nearby churches. No burial records for 1870 to 1919 implies that some records have been lost.
The following volumes are in the County Records Office or are still in use in the parish.
- Baptisms 1543 to the present
- Marriages 1543 to 1739; 1774 to the present
- Burials 1543 to 1870; 1919 to 1943
- Banns of Marriage 1754 to 1812; 1838 to present
Other church records include:-
- Overseers and Churchwardens’ Accounts 1683 – 1784
- Overseers of the Poor Accounts 1782 – 1831
- Vestry and Parochial Church Council (PCC) minutes 1888 – the present.
- Plan of the gravestones in the churchyard, with their inscriptions, as recorded in 1912. (Several of the inscriptions of gravestones in the churchyard can no longer be read)
Escomb Saxon Church 