One of the most important roles of the vestry was to levy and collect taxes from parishioners in order to support the parish clergy, to build and maintain parish churches and chapels, and to help the parish poor. Records in the book show the process for each “laying of the levy” where the vestry takes count of all expenses in the parish, and then divides that amount by the number of tithables, in order to determine the tax to be paid by each tithable.

In the records we see the kinds of expenses borne by the parish, from paying the minister, to paying for the wine and bread, to paying the coffin maker or a doctor or midwife to tending the sick.