Roman Catholic worship

Between 1662 and 1676 eleven Roman Catholics were recorded as present in Fonthill Gifford parish, including Charles Cottington who received a Benedictine priest in the 1690s.  The Cottingtons, who were lords of the manor in the years 1632 - 45 and 1659 -1745, were a Roman Catholic family.  Francis Cottington is recorded as having been fined £795 4s. 8d.

in 1715 for having refused to swear allegiance, as a Roman Catholic, to George I.  He was one of the 26 or 28 Catholics recorded in the parish in 1706; in 1767 there were 34.  Other lords of the manor have similarly been Catholic, including Mervyn, earl of Castlehaven.   

 In the 20th century, between 1927 and 1941, Roman Catholic chaplains were retained by the owners of the Fonthill Abbey estate, the Shaw-Stewart family, who also paid for Catholic children of the parish to be taken to school at Wardour.