B I S 



406 



II I S 



and the 10th of October. A very superior market-In HIT 

 wa erected in 1828 by means of funds raised in nhaiv* ol 

 100/. each. It sUnd* at the point where the two principal 

 lines of street intersect each other. Its front is in the Ionic 

 style, and it has a semicircular area with a colonnade sup 

 ported by iron pillars. Besides the parts appropriated to the 

 common traffic there is a large hall used as acorn-exchange, 

 over which is an assembly -room, a coffee-room, and a cham- 

 ber for the magistrates. The parish, which comprehends 3080 

 cres, contained 803 houses in 1831, when the population 

 was 3958, of whom 2068 were females. 



The town contains a public library and several book so- 

 cieties. There is a National School, supported by voluntary 

 contributions, in which 200 boys and 1 00 girls receive in- 

 struction. There was formerly a free grammar-school in 

 the place, the history of which is very obscure. Chauncey 

 mentions that in 1579 a Mrs. Margaret Deane, of London, 

 left 5/. per annum in fee towards the erection of a free 

 school. He says nothing more about this establishment 

 unii!, further on in his list of benefactors to the town, he 

 says, ' Among these benefactors I may well mention ray 

 honoured master Mr. Thomas Leigh, who raised a fair 

 library for the use of the school in the town, from whence 

 I was sent to the University of Cambridge : it was an ex- 

 cellent nursery that supplied both universities with great 

 numbers of gentlemen who proved eminent in divinity, 

 law, and physick, and some in matters of state. He obliged 

 divers of those gentlemen to present books to the school at 

 their departure, wherein their names are recorded and remain 

 to posterity.' Sir Henry Chauncey wrote in I 700, and was 

 then advanced in years. Salmon, who wrote twenty-eight 

 years later, states that when Dr. Tooke became master of 

 the school, about twenty year* previously, 'its reputation 

 was then in ruins;' but he bestirred himself to restore its 

 efficiency, and succeeded. He got the gentry of Hertford- 

 shire and Essex, and those who had been educated at the 

 school, to contribute their pecuniary aid. A new school- 

 house was erected in the High Street ; it was a square 

 structure supported upon arches, and contained three rooms, 

 that in front was the grammar-school, and as large as both 

 the others, of which one was the library and the other a 

 writing-school. The market-place and shops were under 

 the arches. ' Dr. Tooke, 1 says Salmon, * raised it to a great 

 degree of fame, as the living numbers of gentlemen sent by 

 him to his own and other colleges attest, and considerably in- 

 creased the trade of the town by such a beneficial concourse.' 

 The following is the amount of the information which Car- 

 lisle gives concerning the fate of this establishment. ' The 

 grammar-school of Bishop's Stortford no longer exists . the 

 whole establishment, together with the ichool-house, is in 

 ruins. The library, which is considered a scarce and valuable 

 collection of books, is deposited at the vicarage, but they 

 also are going to decay.' (Chauncey's Historical Antiquities 

 nf Hertfordshire; Salmon's History of Hertfordshire; 

 Cough's Camden't Britannia ; Carlisle's Endowed Gram- 

 mar Srtinnlx ; Heantift nf England and Wales, &c.) 



BISHOP'S WALTHAM. a parish and market-town in 

 the lower half of the hundred of the same name, which lies 

 in the Portsdown division of the county of Southampton ; 

 sixtv-two miles S.\V. byW. from London, and ten miles 

 E.N\E. from Southampton. It lias iinmemorially been the 

 property of the sec of Winchester, whence the affix ' Bishop's.' 

 Domesday describes it among the lands of the see in 

 Hampshire, and says that it was held in demesne, and had 

 always belonged to the bishopric. It was then, ait formerly, 

 usessed at twenty hides, but there were actually thirty. It 

 was in the time of the Confessor worth 3 1/., was afterwards 

 worth \0l. 10*., but WHS then worth 30/. There were seventy 

 villagers and fifteen yeomen, employing twenty-six ploughs : 

 there were seven servants ; and Radulphus, a pnest, held 

 two churches belonging to the m;mor, with two hides and a 

 half. There were three mills which paid 17 1. 6d. Lcland 

 speaks of Bishop's Waltham as ' a praty townlet. Here 

 the bishop of Winchester hath a right ample and goodly 

 maner-place, motid about, and a praty brooke running hard 

 by it. The maner-place hath ben of many bishops build- 

 ing: most part of the three parts of the lease court was 

 htiildid o 1 ' brick and timbre by Bishnn Langten ; the residcw 

 of the inner part in all of stone.' 1 he brook mentioned is 

 the small river II amble, the source of which is about a mile 

 from the village, and passes through a piece of water which 

 is described as having been a large and beautiful lake, half 

 a mile long and a furlong broad ; but it is now deprived of 



this character by the growth of rushes and the encroach- 

 ments of the noil. The bishop'* castle, mentioned by Iceland, 

 WM originally built by Bishop Henry de Blois, brother of 

 King Stephen ; but much of the grandeur which it ulti- 

 mately attained is attributed to the architivlurul ta-.li- of 

 William de Wykeham, whoso favourite residence it was, 

 and who there terminated his active life at the age of 

 eighty. The great hall in the second or inner court was 65 

 Sect in U iiuih. -7 in breadth, and 25 high, and was lighted 

 by five Inrge windows of magnificent proportions. The castle 

 was demolished during the civil wars by the parliamentary 

 nrmy under Waller; and tho ruins, which COIIMSI of the 

 remains of the hall and of a square tower, are now mantled 

 with ivy. The park in which it stood has since 

 verted into farms. The town is chielly remarkable for the 

 neighbourhood of this castle. It has however a trade of 

 some activity in leather, of which it sends large quantu 

 Guernsey, London, and the neighbouring fairs ; there is 

 also some business in malting. Its market is held on 

 Friday ; and there are fairs on the second Friday in May, 

 July 30th, and the first Friday after Old Michaelmas-day. 

 The parish contained 438 houses in 1831, when the popu- 

 lation amounted to 2181 persons, of whom 11 15 were 

 females. The church, which is dedicated to St. Peter, 

 accommodates 1100 persons. The living is a rectory, with 

 a net income of 915*. per annum, in the diocese of Win- 

 chester, tho bishop being patron. There is an endowed 

 charity school in the town founded by Bishop Morley, who 

 endowed it with an annuity of 10/. ; tin- Mini has been 

 augmented to 38/. by subsequent benefactions, and now 

 provides instruction for thirty-six boys. There are also 

 two national schools in the town, containing together eighty- 

 boys and as many girls. 



Waltham forest, in this vicinity, was in the early part of 

 the last century infested by a formidable and resolute gang 

 of deer- stealers who called themselves 'hunters,' but were 

 more generally known by the name of the ' Waltham 

 Blacks,' because they blackened their faces in their pre- 

 datory enterprises. They are mentioned by this name 

 in the act of parliament which was passed against them, 

 and which was therefore, as well as from its extreme 

 severity, called the Black Act. This act declared more 

 deeds to be felonies than had ever before been compre- 

 hended in a single statute. On this account, when Bishop 

 Hoadly was advised to re-stock Waltham Park, he refused, 

 observing that 'it had done mischief enough already.' 

 (Lcland's Itinerary ; Cough's Camderit Britannia ; War- 

 ner's Collections for the History of Hampshire ; Beautif\ 

 f England and Wales, <f-c.) 

 ' BISHOP WEARMOUTH. [See SUNDKRLAND.] 



BISIGNA'NO, a small town in the province of Calabria 

 ( 'lira, in the kingdom of the two Sicilies, situated on a hill 

 near the right bank of the river Crati, about thirteen mile* 

 N. of Cosenza, and about three miles from the high road to 

 Naples. Bisignuno (fives the title of Prince to the i< 

 sentutive of the family of Sanseverino, one of the oldest fa- 

 milies of the kingdom of Naples, which once possessed 

 territories in this district. 



BISLEY, a parish and market-town in the hundred of 

 Bisley, county of Oloucesu r. <>\ miles W. In ,\. from 

 London, and 9 miles S.K. from Gloucester. This large 

 parish is from - to -' miles in cin-unilerence. and compre 

 hends about 6000 acres, the greater part of which is high 

 ground, with steep hills and narrow valleys. The sn .. 

 the hills present inclosed arable lands, interspersed with 

 cop-cs, and the valleys are mostly kept for pasturage, and 

 are watered by many rivulets, which form the Stroudwatrr 

 River. Bisley, Challbrd, and other hamlets in the parish, 

 are chielly inhabited by persons employed in the woollen 

 manufactures; and many fulling and dressing mills arc 

 erected in different parts of the parish. On tin- establish- 

 ment of the woollen manufactures the parish received large 

 additions to its population, and the new inhabitants esta- 

 blished themselves upon the waste lands. Such lands were 

 formerly very extensive. It appears from Holmshed 

 when the commons were given to the poor by Roger Mor- 

 timer, Earl of March, in the time of Edward III. .they corn- 

 led i-jno acres. In 1730, although the commons 

 were much reduced then by inclosures, they comprehended 

 700 acres, but they have since undergone further reduction 

 l>y additional inclosures. 



In the Domesday Survey the manor of Biselege,' in the 

 Hundred of ' Biseleie,' is described among the lamia of Earl 



