HUXLOE HUNDRED irthlingborough 



church.** About 1918 he sold the advowson with the 

 Fermyn Woods estate, to Mr. Robert Davidson. 



The church land consists of 3 a. 

 CHARITIES 3 r. 37 p. at Grafton Underwood let 

 to Mr. W. Palmer at £6 yearly. The 

 income is applied by the rector and churchwardens, 

 agreeably to immemorial usage, to the expenses of the 

 church. 



The Poor's Land has been appropriated time out 

 of mind to the use of the poor. It consists of 9 a. 

 I r. 17 p. in the parish of Geddington and is let to 

 Henry Smith at ^^lo yearly. In 1905 a sale of timber 



took place and the proceeds were invested in 

 £}\ 14J. 4<^. Consols, producing 15^ 8J. yearly in 

 dividends. The income is distributed in bread and 

 meat by the rector and churchwardens to about 



5 recipients. 



By her will, proved 19 September, 1856, Elizabeth 

 Dopping Arnold gave /jioo Consols to the rector and 

 churchwardens for the benefit of 6 poor families. 

 The income amounting to £z ioj. is distributed to 



6 families in bread, meat and clotliing. 



The stock is with the Official Trustees of Charitable 

 Funds. 



IRTHLINGBOROUGH 



Erdeburne, Erdinburne (xi cent.), Yrlingbure, 

 Irtlingburg, Irtlibure, Urtlingburch (xii cent.), 

 Yrthingburia, Irelingburg, Irtlingburgh (xiii cent.), 

 Hertillingborogh (xiv cent.), Artleborough (xvi, xvii, 

 xviii cent.), Itchingborovve (xvii cent.). 



The parish of Irthlingborough comprises 3,676 

 acres, of which about half is arable and half under 

 grass. It lies in the bend of the River Nene, which 

 forms its eastern and southern boundaries, while the 

 Ise, a tributary of the Nene, is its western boundary. 

 The land rises northward and westward from the river, 

 reaching 260 ft. at Crow Hill near the confines of Little 

 Addington. The soil is clay, iron- and limestone. 



Until the latter part of the l6th century Irthling- 

 borough formed two parishes, the one with its church 

 of St. Peter standing in the village on the south side 

 of me main road, and the other with its church of 

 All Saints about a quarter of a mile east of St. Peter's. 

 The site of this church is in a field overlooking the 

 Nene on the south-west of the road to Higham Ferrers, 

 near the manor house, which was probably the manor 

 house of the BataiUe fee to which the church was 

 attached. As early as 1428* there were only eight 

 parishioners, and in 1562 the church is said to have 

 been ' dcvasted and in utter ruin.' Sir William 

 Cecil, being in want of lead for the roof of Burleigh 

 House, was informed that the parishioners of All 

 Saints were ' otherwise sufficiently provided of a 

 church,' and that the Dean of Peterborough, who had 

 been approached, declared the lead on the church was 

 worth ;^io, and no one should have it except Cecil.' 

 In 1570, after an episcopal visitation, the church- 

 wardens were admonished regarding the state of the 

 church. The glass windows were broken ' that 20 

 nobles will not make them sufficient,' two altars were 

 half standing and ' not pulled down as they ought,' 

 there was ' much superstition which would grieve any 

 man to come to ' and the churchyard was ' in con- 

 fusion.' The churchwardens were ordered to certify 

 that the repairs had been made.* Probably no repairs 

 were carried out, and the church at this time fell into 

 complete ruin, although the fragment of a gravestone, 

 bearing the date 1670, found on the site, may indicate 

 thai the churchyard was in use until the close of the 

 1 7th century. The church had been pulled down long 

 before Bridges wrote {d. 1724), though considerable 



remains of it then existed, built into a house. In 1849 

 only the foundations of the eastern and northern walls 

 could be made out, and from them it was considered 

 that the church was smaller than that of St. Peter's. 

 The foundations are now only discernible for a few feet. 

 The village clusters round the road from Higham 

 Ferrers to Kettering where it is crossed by the by-road 

 from Wellingborough to the Addingtons and Wood- 

 ford. The former road crosses the River Nene to the 

 east of the village by Irthlingborough Bridge, which 

 was built probably in the 14th century. It consists of 

 ten ribbed arches of three chamfered orders with five 

 refuge cutwaters on the down-stream side and three 

 further cutwaters at the south end weathering back 

 below the parapet. One of the cutwaters bears the 

 date 1668 denoting, probably, the time of some repair. 

 The bridge was widened on the up-stream side in 1754 

 by the addition of semicircular brick arches which are 

 advanced nearly to the front of the old cutwaters* ; 

 on a stone of one of these cutwaters are the arms of 

 Peterborough Monastery. The refuges above on this 

 side have been destroyed. The bridge was repaired 

 in 1922. The expense of the repairs of this bridge, 

 and that at Ditchford at the south of the parish, was 

 formerly borne jointly by Irthlingborough and Higham 

 Ferrers. 



The market cross stands at the junction of the two 

 main reads. It is of late 1 3th century date and consists 

 of a calvary of seven octagonal steps^ with a shaft 

 splayed from a square base to form an irregular 

 octagon, on each face of which at unequal distances are 

 carved ballfiowers resembling crockets. The capital 

 is carved with trefoil foliage and is surmounted by a 

 square abacus set diagonally to the base. The cross 

 was restored in 1925 by H.M. Office of Works. 

 Bridges states that ' the stafT ' of the cross, in height 

 13 ft., was used as a standard for the pole to measure 

 the ' parts or doles on the meadows.'* 



A house at the west end of the main street is dated 

 1624, but very few old buildings remain in the town. 

 On a small two-storied house in Gosham Street is a 

 panel inscribed : 



WILLIAM TRIGC 

 BUILT THIS HOUSE 

 FOR TWO WIDOWS 

 ANNO DOM. 1724 



" Whellan, Hist, of Noribanu. Thomai 

 Harper preiented in 1692 prctumably 

 ' pro hac vice ' (Initit. Bki. (P.R.O.) 

 1692). 



' Ftud. Aidi, IT, 52. 



• Nortbantj, A', and Q. vi, 201. 



• Ibid. (New Ser.) ii, 175. 



• Ibid i, 91 ; ii, 26, 42, 136. 



' There are leven iteps on one side and 

 eight on the other, the lower itep being 



207 



divided into two on the south side and 

 raised high above the road : Asi. Arch. 

 Soc. Reps, xxiii, 179. 

 • Bridges, Hill. Norlbanli. ii, 235. 



