Will 1751 of William Batchelor

[londonscorpion]

I just can't tell. So I extracted all the B and R words and put them together. Still can't tell. But looking at the R words there would appear to be two differeent styles of writing: two different people or perhaps two different pens. What do you think? Maybe even a third hand for the very small print.

[londonscorpion]

I seem to have cropped too much off one of the "Buildings", so here is a corrected grouping.

[horselydown86]

But looking at the R words there would appear to be two differeent styles of writing: two different people or perhaps two different pens. What do you think? Maybe even a third hand for the very small print.

I would say just one hand for the main text.  There's always going to be a slight variation depending on how fresh the ink is on the pen and what part of the page is more or less comfortable for the writer to address.

In making their register copies, the PCC copyists deliberately used another hand for the witness signatures, presumably to show that they were written by a separate hand on the original.

ADDED:

By "another hand" I mean the same writer switched out of his trained copyist's hand to a less formal hand.

[londonscorpion]

I guess we'll never know for sure. Thank you both for all your help.