A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



Waldtgrave. Party ar- 

 gent and gules. 



TJVriVELL licid before 1384 by Sir Richard Walde- 

 grave, knt.^' He or a later Richard made a settlement 

 of the manor in 1437,'- and two years later his trustees 

 granted it to his son Ricliard and his wife Alice and 

 their heirs.'-' The younger Richard died in 1453,** 

 but Alice held the manor until her death in I473, 

 when it passed to Richard's 

 nephew William.^ The latter 

 died in 1528,^ but his son 

 and heir George only survived 

 him a few months, and the 

 manor passed to his grandson 

 William,^^ who dealt with it 

 in 1532.^ No further men- 

 tion of the manor apparently 

 occurs. In 1453 and 1473 the 

 manor was said to have been 

 held of the Abbot of Ramsey 

 for the service of paying one 

 rose yearly,^ but in 1528 the overlord was stated to 

 be the Abbot of Peterborough.'"' It seems possible 

 that this may have been described as the manor of 

 Slipton, which in 1562 George Lane held and in 1564 

 conveyed to John Bedell, who in 1576 granted it to 

 Lewis Lord Mordaunt.^' 



Two mills are mentioned in Domesday Book on the 

 manor of the Abbey of Thorney,payinga rent oijj.^d. 

 a year,''^ but only one mill is mentioned in a buU 

 of Pope .Mexander III.'" In 1330, Hugh de Walmes- 

 ford claimed that the \'eres had held a view of frank- 

 pledge in their manor time out of mind ; the royal 

 officials denied his right, but Hugh was able to 

 recover it on payment of a fine. He also successfully 

 claimed the right of toll of salt in his demesne lands.'*^ 

 In 1720 Thomas Ekins had a court leet, court baron 

 a!id view of frankpledge in Twywell.^* 



The church of ST. NICHOLAS con- 

 CHURCH sists of chancel 35 ft. by 14 ft. 10 in., 

 with south vestry and organ chamber, 

 clcarstoried nave of three bays 38 ft. 6 in. by 16 ft. 3 in., 

 south aisle 13 ft. 9 in. wide, south porch, and west 

 tower 8 ft. 6 in. square, all these measurements being 

 internal. 



The church is built throughout of rubble, and has 

 plain parapets and flat-pitched leaded roofs to nave 

 and aisle and a slated eaved roof to the chancel. 

 Internally the walls are plastered. The building was 

 re-roofed in 181 1 and underwent an extensive re- 

 storation in 1867, wliich included the removal of a 

 west gallery and the rebuilding of the tower arch, 

 then in a ruinous condition. 



The main part of the fabric, comprising the tower, 

 nave and the west portion of the chancel, is of the 

 middle of the 12th century, but there is some reason 

 for believing that the first church was of earlier date, 

 to which short north and south transeptal chapels 

 were added at the cast end of the nave walls about 



1140-50. To this cross church the aisle was added 

 about fifty years later, and towards the end of the 

 13th century the chancel was extended eastward and 

 windows inserted in the aisle. The porch and clear- 

 story are of the 15th century. At some subsequent 

 period the western portion of the aisle was demo- 

 lished, probably in order to save the cost of repair, 

 and was rebuilt only in 1867.^* 



The composition of the south arcade is unusual. 

 The broad semicircular eastern arch, which probably 

 marked the entrance to the former transept, is of two 

 plain chamfered orders and springs at the east end, 

 at a height of 5 ft., from a flat respond with scalloped 

 impost and chamfered abacus. The two western 

 arches are also semicircular and appear to have been 

 cut through the nave wall about 1 190, beginning 

 from the west end. The western arch springs from 

 a half-octagonal respond set against the old wall, and 

 was made narrower but much higher than the older 

 existing arch at the east end, the new middle arch 

 filling the space between. The arches are of two 

 chamfered orders springing at a height of about 

 7 ft. from octagonal piers with moulded capitals and 

 bases. To allow of its meeting the older eastern arch 

 the middle arch had to be stilted on that side, its 

 outer order being made to spring from the new pier, 

 while the inner order springs from a corbel above 

 the capital ; the corbel is decorated with nail-head 

 ornament. 



The chancel has a late 13th-century east window 

 of three lights with intersecting tracery, and in the 

 south wall arc two windows of the same period with 

 forked mullions and a trefoiled piscina with fluted 

 bowl. North of the altar in the east wall is an 

 image-bracket. In the north wall, about 15 ft. from 

 the west, is a round-headed 12th century window 

 with wide inner splay, and further west again a 

 rectangular low-side window with external chamfered 

 opening and flat sill inside, perhaps a 14th-century 

 insertion.^' There was originally a sacristy on the 

 north side of the chancel at its east end, the blocked 

 pointed doorway of which remains, together with a 

 piscina and rectangular aumbry now on the outside 

 of the building. The blank wall space on the inside 

 is filled by a curious and highly interesting stone 

 structure of late 13th-century date consisting in the 

 lower stage of a broad segmental tomb-recess, the 

 arch springing from short attached shafts, above 

 which is a double aumbry, probably used also as an 

 Easter sepulchre, and above this again a sloping stone 

 desk with a book-rest for the reader of the Gospel.** 

 The south wall of the chancel is pierced at its west 

 end by a wide two-centred segment arch of two 

 chamfered orders, the inner order on moulded corbels 

 supported by heads. The arch is of late 13th-century 

 character and apparently opened originally to a chapel 

 afterwards destroyed ; before tlic erection of the 



•' Chart. R. 7 & 8 Ric. II, 111. 13, no. 



'5- 



"Feet o( F. Northanti. Mich. 16 Men. 

 VI. 



"Chan. Inc). p.m. 32 Ilcn. VI, no. 36. 



» Ibid. 



»» Ibid. 18 Edw. IV, no. ii. 



" Ibid. (Ser. ii), jlviii, 79. 



•' Ibid. 85. 



"Recov. R. Trin. 24 Hen. VIII, ro. 

 123. 



'" Chan. Inq. p.m. 32 Ilcn. VI, no. 36; 

 18 F.dw. IV, no 22. 



"Ibid. (.Scr. ii), xlviii, 79, 85. 



" Recov. R, nil. 1562, ro. 340; Feet 

 of V. Nortli.mts. Mil. 7 Elii. ; Cal.Ftnf, 

 Eait. 18 Eli7.. 



" y.C.II. Norihanti. i, 31911. 



" Dllgdale, Mon. Anej. ii, 604. 



" riar. it Quo H'urr. (Rec. Com.), 569. 



*' Recov. R. Mich. 7 Geo. I, ro. 127. 



" Norlbampl. Mercury, 2 Nov. 1867, 



250 



where an .iccount of the rcttorntion i« 

 given. The church was reopened 30 

 October. 



*' It i> 3 ft. 8 in. high by 12 in. wide, 

 and 2 ft. 6 in. above the ground outside. 

 An'JC. Arch. Soe. Rrps. jxii, 4<;i. 



*" The lower stage, or tomb recess, is 

 6 ft. lo in. wide by 3 ft. 3 in. high ; the 

 structure above in 4 ft. 4 in. wide and 

 4 ft. high to the top of the slope of the 

 deik. 



