Impropriator

Every reader must recollect, that after the fall of the Catholic Church, and the Presbyterian Church Government had been established by law, the rank, and especially the wealth, of the Bishops, Abbots, Priors, and so forth, were no longer vested in ecclesiastics, but in lay impropriators of the church revenues, or, as the Scottish lawyers called them, titulars of the temporalities of the benefice, though having no claim to the spiritual character of their predecessors in office.

The land includes a field called Clanacre, which is accepted as rectorial property, making the Wallbanks lay impropriators of the parish of Aston Cantlow and Wilmcote with Billesley.

Mr Justice Ferris, sitting at the High Court in London, said this made the Wallbanks lay impropriators of the parish and they had to pay for repairs under the provisions of the Chancel Repairs Act of 1932.