A most remarkable day. At Morning Prayer the Clerk informed me that a Deputation from the Rural Sanitary Authority had called during the night and filled the pond with claret. I went down to look and found the whole village assembled. Mr Mann proposed a resolution that it be bottled and sold for the Church Repairs Fund. Mr Inns counter-proposed that it be left as it was. Isaac Padbury objected to both motions on the grounds that the Vestry had not been consulted. No resolution was carried. Mrs Enock made herself heard.

At noon a telegram arrived from the Bishop informing me that Her Majesty had been so impressed by the management of the Sibford Allotments that she wished to confer upon me a Barony. I am to be styled Lord Stevens of Sibford Gower and Sibford Ferris, with a seat in the House of Lords and an income of two thousand pounds per annum. Bell says she will need new curtains.

Harry writes from London that he has been appointed Professor of Pond Management at the University of Cambridge. I replied that no good could come of a Cambridge appointment and that he had better try for something at Oxford.

At Evensong the congregation numbered four hundred and seventy-three, the largest I have ever recorded. Every pew was full. Charles Barnes had to light all the candles and still there was not room. People came from Burdrop, Sibford Ferris, Epwell, Shutford, Swalcliffe, Brailes, and one man who said he had walked from Banbury. The offertory amounted to fourteen pounds, six shillings, and eightpence. I preached on the text “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” I do not think anyone took the hint.

Sally Hone called to beg a glass of the claret. I told her the pond was under the jurisdiction of the Rural Sanitary Authority and she must apply to Mr White.

Frank says I am become a humorist in my old age. I told him I am nothing of the kind. I have merely set down the facts as they occurred.

… more from the diary