A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



also a rent-charge of 40/. a year to be distributed to 

 the poorest inhabitants on the same days. These 

 payments are made by the earl of Westmorland, and 

 the 40/. is applied in bread. 



The same donor by her will devised one other 

 rent-charge of /'lo and stock for 'putting to work' 

 the poor of Apethorpe and Woodncwton, and 

 directed lands to be purchased and assured for that 

 purpose. 



This gift was augmented by the donor's descendants 



by an additional rent-charge of £,^(>, which, together 

 with the rent-charge of ^^ 10 a year, was appointed to 

 be yearly employed for binding-out apprentices to 

 trades in Apethorpe, Woodnewton, Nassington, and 

 Yarwell. The charity is regulated by a scheme of the 

 Charity Commissioners, dated 4 June, 1875. The 

 annual charge of £<), and the dividends on a sum of 

 £,ioj 15/. lod. consols, which is held by the official 

 trustees of Charitable Funds, are applicable for ap- 

 prenticing poor children of Apethorpe. 



COLLYWESTON 



Weston (until xiii cent.), Colyn Weston or Coly- 

 weston (xiii-xv cent.). 



The parish of CoUyweston covers about i,575 

 acres, and is bounded for some distance on the west 

 by the River Welland, which is here also the boundary 



mm '%ii^:i^^' 



Sundial at Collyweston. 



between Northamptonshire and Rutland. The land 

 near the river is low and liable to floods, but from it 

 the ground rises gradually to the hill east of the 

 village of Collyweston, which attains a height of 

 300 ft., one of the most considerable elevations in 

 this hundred. The parish is fairly well wooded, 

 Collyweston great wood in the south covering about 

 230 acres, and there are several small plantations near 

 It and in the north of the parish. No railroad 

 passes through the parish ; the main road is that from 

 Stamford to Kettering, which runs between Colly- 

 weston, Easton, and Duddington. This is crossed by 

 a district road from Wansford to Ketton. At the 



junction of these two roads the village of Collyweston 

 is built. To the north-east of the village, along the 

 side of the road to Easton and stretching into that 

 parish, are the famous slate quarries.' The majority 

 of the population, numbering 361 in 1 90 1, are occu- 

 pied as slaters and lime-burners. The soil is good 

 but various on a subsoil principally of inferior oolite ; 

 there are 812J acres of arable land, 393 J of pasture, 

 and 240 of woodland ; good wheat, barley, and 

 turnips are produced. 



The main street of the village runs east and west 

 down the slope, with a second street parallel to it on the 

 north, and between the two, about the middle of the vil- 

 lage and well below the crest of the high ground, stands 

 the church, with the vicarage near it on the south-east, 

 and the manor-house and farm below on the south- 

 west. On the manor-house is the date 1696. 



The street has many picturesque stone-built houses, 

 with the mullioned windows common in the district, 

 and roofed with the grey slates which take their 

 name from the village. The wide view across the 

 valley of the Welland, and the steeply-sloping street 

 with its irregular line of grey stone houses, make a 

 delightful picture from the high road above. 



Nothing now remains of Collyweston House but 

 its site, the last remaining buildings having been 

 destroyed in the last century, but there is standing a 

 piece of the old high wall of the garden. Bridges 

 notes that in his time there was on the site ' a neat 

 house on the steep of a hill, and a park which some 

 time since was disparked.' In the garden of a house a 

 short distance below the church to the north-west is 

 an interesting 18th-century sundial in the form of an 

 alcove, built of wrought stone, with an elliptical arch, 

 from the crown of which lines radiate to a row of 

 numerals set round the alcove below a string at the 

 springing of the arch. The pound still remains to the 

 south of the village, and beyond it is a new cemeter}'. 



There is a council school, built in 1877. 



The parish was enclosed in 1 844 ; the award is 

 in the custody of the parish council. Among the 

 place-names found in this parish are Shepweybroke, 

 le Dolnys, Sarte, le Swan, Jackersale, Mereshale, the 

 Deeps, Conduit Field, and Pinfold Furlong. 



In 1086 Ralph de Limesi held of the 

 MANOR king 2 hides in ' Westone,' with Herhvin 

 as under-tenant, which had been held 

 by Earl Morcar in King Edward's time.' Ralph de 

 Limesi held as many as forty-one manors of the king 

 in various counties at the time of the great survey. 

 He is said to have been a nephew of William the 

 Conqueror, but the only evidence of this seems to 

 be a statement made by Thomas Talbot, sometime 

 keeper of the records in the Tower in the 17th 



^ Sec Article on Industries in this volume. 

 > K C. H. Norihanti, i, 336J. 



550 



