Service once a month by 1742, and a building of comfort— able, cluttered appearance fitted the calmer mood which settled on the village in the 18th century. A pulpit placed well down the nave dominated the church’s interior, while box pews crowded round and hat pegs lined the walls. From his pew in the south aisle the squire looked on, and in the gallery at the west end the village musicians were sole masters. Candles to light their singing and strings for the bass viol were items of regular expense for the churchwardens, whose accounts survive from the late 18th century.

The evangelical movement had reached the village by 1822 with the reqistration of a house for non-conformist worship. Anglican revival soon followed, and by 1851, an average of 100 people attended Sunday service in the morning, as many as 170 in the afternoon. Drastic restoration of the church in 1866 swept away the gallery and box pews, removed the pulpit from its commanding position, and filled the church with respectable Victorian benches brought from the Savoy Chapel in the Strand. But not everyone was happy to bid farewell to a colourful past: the minstrels objected to the newfangled choir.

Taken from the Village web site at http://www.ruishton.org.uk/archive/churchbook.htm