A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



By indenture dated 19 Dec 1765, 

 CHARITIES in performance of the intention of 



Henry Wotton, as expressed by his 

 will, a yearly rentcharge of £1 lis. was granted to 

 trustees. The rentcharge is paid out of land belong- 

 ing to Lord Lilford and is applied by the overseers in 

 the distribution of 120 twopenny loaves and 12s. in 

 money to between 50 and 60 recipients. 



Poor's Allotment. On an inclosure of the lands at 

 Aldwinile land was set out for the use of the poor. The 

 property consists of 24 a. I r. 30 p. of land let to Lord 



Lilford for ^^30 yearly, which sum is distributed by 

 the rector and churchwardens in coal to about 60 

 recipients. 



The Church Land was set out on the inclosure of the 

 lands in AldwinJde and consists of 3 r. 1 8 p. let to Lord 

 Lilford at £1 15/. yearly, which is applied by the 

 churchwardens towards church repairs. 



Richard Thorpe, rector of Barby, who died in 167 1, 

 left by his will a quarter of a yardland in Barby Field 

 for teaching poor children at Aldwinkle. The rent is 

 paid to the managers of Aldwinkle Church School. 



ALDWINKLE ST. PETER 



The description of the parish of Aldwinkle St. Peter 

 is covered by that of Aldwinkle All Saints (q.v.) to 

 which it was united in 1879. T^^ villages adjoin 

 Aldwinkle St. Peter, which is the larger, lying to the 

 north of Aldwinkle All Saints. The present rectory 

 house was built in 1867. The old rectory, which 



■ Steps 

 desfroyei 



I Late I6I2J Century 



Plan of LyvEDtN New Building 



appears to have been a timber-framed house, was pulled 

 down at the end of the 1 8th century by the first Lord 

 Lilford.i 



At Lyvcdcn, where the land rises some 150 ft. from 

 the River Nenc and the country is well wooded, are 

 the two interesting houscsknown as the Old Building 

 and the New Building. The former stands on the site 

 of an old manor house of the Treshams of Rushton. 

 Of rcccnl years it has been occupied as a farmhouse, 

 and has become encumbered with farm buildings. 

 Only a few fragments of the old house which it replaced 

 are preserved, some built into the house itself, others 

 into an adjacent cottage. It had an imposing Jacobean 



' Attoc. Arch. Soc. Rtp. vii, 251. 



staircase and some handsome fireplaces of the same 

 period, but the staircase has now been sold. It appears 

 to have extended farther to the east than at present, 

 and there was a forecourt entered through a fine arch- 

 way, which, however, was taken down about the middle 

 of last century and re-erected at the neighbouring 

 house of Farming Woods by 

 the then owner, Lord Lyveden. 

 Towards the end of the l6th 

 century. Sir Thomas Tresham of 

 Rushton, of whom Thomas Fuller 

 in his Worthies says ' hard to say 

 whether greater his delight or 

 skill in building, though more 

 forward in beginning than fortu- 

 nate in finishing his fabricks,' 

 devised a fine lay-out at the back 

 of the Old Building, extending 

 some way up the hill. Remains 

 of it still exist, particularly a 

 long raised terrace with a mount 

 at each end. Adjoining this is a 

 ' canal,' part of a series which 

 inclosed a ' water orchard.' Be- 

 yond these again, and doubtless 

 once connected to them in the 

 design, lies the curious New 

 Building, one of three notable 

 buildings erected by Sir Thomas, 

 the others being the Triangular 

 Lodge at Rushton and the Market 

 House at Rothwell. Sir Thomas 

 was a Roman Catholic and a mys- 

 tic. As the former he suffered 

 long terms of imprisonment, 

 which incidentally gave him 

 leisure as a mystic to elaborate 

 many curious conceits, some of which he embodied 

 in the Triangular Lodge and this New Building. The 

 first is based on the number 3 and illustrates tiie 

 doctrine of the Trinity. The New Building symbolises 

 the I'assion, and its design is influenced by the 

 numbers 3, 5, 7, 9. The plan is an equal-armed 

 cross, each arm being a square with a bay window 

 at the end. The basement windows and shields 

 are grouped in threes ; the bay windows have five 

 sides of 5 ft. long ; the lower cornice carries seven 

 emblems of the Passion placed in rotation ; in the 

 upper cornice were appropriate legends, parts of 

 which remain, and they were so selected that those on 

 each arm had eighty-one letters (nine times nine). 

 The building wa« intended for a small house or ' lodge,' 



168 



