A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



substratum loamy. Great Oolite, limestone, sand, and 

 ironstone. The chief crops are cereals. The popula- 

 tion, which in 1801 was 284, in 193 1 was 698. It is 

 mainly engaged in agriculture, but some shoemaking 

 is done. 



In the extreme north of the parish are Big Covert 

 and Ashpole Plantation with Frisby Lodge between 

 them. Finedon Iron Works on the eastern border of 

 the parish were established in 1866 by the Glendon 

 Iron Ore Company, and at one time had six blast 

 furnaces in use, but now are disused. There are two 

 good gravel pits, the soil, partly clay, being gravelly in 

 the lower lands. 



The village lies along a road branching from the 

 main road to Kettering from Wellingborough, where 

 the parish narrows to a mere strip. At its centre is St. 

 Mary's Church, lying to the east of the road, with the 

 manor house opposite it on the west. To the north of 

 the church is the school, built in 1851, and enlarged 

 in 1876 and 1899 to hold 220 children. South of it is 

 the Methodist chapel and the infants' school. The 

 chapel was built in 1882. 



In the Domesday Survey LITTLE 

 MANORS HARROfFDEN was entered among the 

 Harrowden properties included in the 

 lands of the Bishop of Coutances. One and a half hides 

 'in another Hargedone' held of the bishop by Wakelin, 

 valued with 2 J hides which Wakelin held of him in Great 

 Harrowden (q.v.), and I hide i virgate in the hands 

 of Hardwin,a man of Wakelin's, which Siuerd had held 

 freely in King Edward's time,and whose value had risen 

 from 20/. to 40/.,' appear to have corresponded, roughly, 

 to Little Harrowden. The bishop's Harrowden lands 

 had been forfeited and redistributed before the taking of 

 the 12th-century Northamptonshire Survey, but the first 

 property previously mentioned was apparently repre- 

 sented by lands still held with Great Harrowden (q.v.), 

 and the second by a hide of the fee of William de Curcy 

 which Reygold held,- and which seems to have been 

 the origin of the manor of Little Harrowden, whose 

 first recorded owner was William Raymond.^ The dis- 

 tinctive appellation. Little Harrowden, was already in 

 existence in I227;'' and Henry de Raunds, who suc- 

 ceeded William Raymond in the manor, made a con- 

 veyance of land in Little Harrowden to Robert son of 

 Henry of Northampton in 1237. ^ In 1316 William de 

 Raunds was entered with John de Leuknor as holding 

 in Harrowden by knight service,* and his share included 

 evidently the manor of Little Harrowden, for which in 

 1329 William de Raunds claimed view of frankpledge 

 as appurtenant to this manor, of which his great-grand- 

 father Henry de Raunds had been enfeoffed by Wil- 

 liam Raymond.' He stated that the manor was held of 

 the honor of Huntingdon. 



Little Harrowden descended with the manor of 

 Raunds (q.v.) to the Gages until 1553, when George 

 Gage and Cecily his wife conveyed it to Anthony 

 Shuckborough.^ Thomas Shuckborough senior and 



Shuckborough. Sable a 



chcveron betiveen three 



pierced moleti argent. 



Bridget his wife were dealing with the manor of Little 

 Harrowden alias SH UCKBORO UGHS in 1 6 11 ' and 

 1619,'" and Thomas Shuckborough junior and Eleanor 

 his wife in 1623 granted it to John Sanderson," who 

 with his wife Cecily and John 

 Sanderson junior in 1632 con- 

 veyed it to Edward Vaux, Lord 

 Harrowden.'^ In 1646 he settled 

 all his Harrowden property on 

 his wife with remainder to her 

 son Nicholas Knollys, Earl of 

 Banbury;'^ and at the marriage 

 of the latter with his second wife, 

 Anne Sherard, he settled these 

 manors in jointure on her with 

 Orlingbury, Boughton (q.v.), 

 &C.''' Anne, his eldest daughter 

 by his first wife Isabel, eldest 

 daughter to Mountjoy, Earl of Newport, married Sir 

 John Briscoe, who, according to Baker, purchased 

 Little Harrowden Manor from his wife's half-brother 

 Charles, called Earl of Banbury.'^ He mortgaged it 

 with Boughton to John Lord Ashburnham, with whom 

 and with others in 1 7 1 8 he conveyed it with court leet, 

 court baron, view of frankpledge, and free fishing to 

 Richard Young, esq.'* Since that date it has descended 

 in the family of Young of Orhngbury (q.v.)." 



The other manor of Little Harrowden previously 

 referred to can be traced back to the fee and a half in 

 Little Harrowden and Clipston which was held in 1 242 

 with a fee in Great Harrowden of Isabel de Brus, of 

 the honor of Huntingdon, by Geoffrey de Leuknor,'* 

 and in 1284 by Ralf de Leuknor." This manor was 

 a member of the manor of Great Harrowden^" and has 

 always been held with that manor (q.v.). In the 14th 

 century the Greens of Green's Norton appear to have 

 been already tenants in the manor under the Simeons, 

 as a messuage and 3 virgates in Little Harrowden, 

 which Sir Thomas Green had settled on his son 

 Thomas, were delivered to the latter after his father's 

 death in 1391.-' 



On 9 July 1607 Robert Syers, a recusant, being 

 seised for term of his life of the manor or chief messuage 

 of Isham and Little Harrowden, in the tenure of several 

 persons and of a yearly value of ;£io, two-thirds of the 

 same were granted to Edward Haselrigge or Heselrigg 

 of Theddingworth (Leics.).-^ 



A fee in Orlingbury and Harrowden which Simon 

 de Loges was holding in 1242 of the barony of Mar- 

 garet de Rivers^' must have included land in Little 

 Harrowden, as Richard de Loges was in 1227 in con- 

 flict with the Abbot of Sulby about the advowson of 

 Little Harrowden;^* and in 1282 a grant of land in 

 Little Harrowden was made by Richard de Loges of 

 Orlingbury to Roger atte Chyrche of Isham and Alice 

 his wife. -5 It presumably descended with Orlingbury 

 (q.v.), as messuages in Little Harrowden were held by 

 Thomas Beavys with his manor in Orlingbury in 1469.^* 



' V.C.H. Northants. i, 310. 

 ^ Ibid, i, 383. 



5 Plac. de Quo fVarr. (Rec. Com.), 514. 

 ♦ Cat. Fat. 1225-32, p. 152. 

 5 Feet of F. Northants. Hen. Ill, 

 file 28, no. 352. 



' Feud. Aids, iv, 22. 

 ' Plac. de Quo PVarr. (Rec. Com.), 514. 

 8 Feet of F. Northants.Trin. 7 Edw. VI. 

 » Ibid. East. 8 Jas. I. 

 '» Ibid. Hil. 16 Jas. X. 



" Ibid. Hil. 20 Jas. I. 



■^ Ibid. Mich. 7 Chas. I. 



" Feet of F. Div. Co. Mich. 22 Chas. I. 



'* Baker, History of Northants. i, 3 3 ; Feet 

 of F. Northants. Mich. 1655. 



'5 Baker, op. cit. i, 33. According to 

 Bridges (Hist, of Northants. i, 411) Sir 

 John Briscoe held in right of his wife who 

 had succeeded to the manor. 



" Feet of F. Northants. East. 4 Geo. I. 



■' Ibid. Hil. and Trin. 28 Geo. 11; 



Recov. R. East. 28 Geo. II, ro. 52; Kelly, 

 Directories. ^^ Bk. of Fees, i^y^. 



'» Feud. Aids, iv, i. 



20 Plac. de Quo IVarr. (Rec. Com.), 535. 



^' Cal. Close, 1389-92, p. 392. 



^^ Pat. R. 6 Jas. I, pt. 2, no. 17. 



" Bk. of Fees, 931. 



^* Cal. Pat. 1225-32, p. 152. 



25 Feet of F. Northants. 10 Edw. I, 

 no. 90. 



2* Ibid. 9 Edw. IV, no. 23. 



186 



