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Easton Neston with Hlllcote, Northamptonshire

Historical Description

Easton Neston with Hlllcote, a parish in Northamptonshire, on the river Tove, 1½ mile ENE from Towcester station on the L. & N.W.R., and 3½ WSW from Roade. Post, money order, and telegraph office, Towcester. Acreage, 1749; population, 171. Easton Neston House was built partly by Sir Christopher Wren, but has been very much altered. It formerly contained a splendid collection of ancient marbles and pictures, given in 1755 to the University of Oxford. It is very pleasantly situated in the midst of a park of 250 acres, and is the seat of the Hesketh family. A Cistercian priory stood near Neen-wood, and has left some vestiges in a farmhouse. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Peterborough; gross yearly value, £250. The church is a building of stone in the Norman style, is ancient, with a tower, contains many curious monuments, and is good. There are charities worth about £140 a year.

Transcribed from The Comprehensive Gazetteer of England & Wales, 1894-5

Administration

The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.

Ancient CountyNorthamptonshire 
Ecclesiastical parishEaston-Neston St. Mary 
HundredCleley 
Poor Law unionTowcester 

Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.


Church Records

The register dates from the year 1559.

Ancestry.co.uk, in association with the Northamptonshire Record Office, have images of the Parish Registers and Bishop's Transcripts for Northamptonshire online.


Churches

Church of England

St. Mary (parish church)

The church of St. Mary is an edifice of stone in the Norman style, consisting of chancel, clerestoried nave, aisles, south porch and an embattled western tower containing a clock and 8 bells; two new bells were given in 1911 by the members of the Slarke family: the chancel retains a piscina: the whole of the windows are stained: there are also some very fine monuments to the Fermor family, including an altar tomb with highly-finished effigies in brass of a man in plate armour, with apron of chain mail, and his wife; at the head and, foot are shields of arms, and around three sides an inscription to "Richard Fermor esq. Marchant of the Staple of Calays," ob. 1552, and Anne (Browne), his wife: on the north side of the chancel, placed in front of a wide monument, is an altar tomb, with recumbent effigies, to Sir George Fermor kt. ob. 1613, and Mary (Curson), his wife, ob. 1628; the figure of the knight is in plate armour, and that of his wife in ruff, hood and gown; in the centre of the monument, beneath an arch, supported by Corinthian columns, is a quartered achievement of arms, supported by small reclining figures of Justice and Truth, with the motto "Hora e Sempre;" on the ends and front of the tomb are the effigies of 15 children, with shields of arms; the whole is of alabaster in very fine preservation; there is also a mural monument of white marble with figures of a man and woman kneeling at a desk, and an inscription to Sir John Fermor K.B. ob. 1571, and Maud (Vaux) his wife, ob. 1569: on the south wall is a large and ponderous monument of black and white marble to Sir Hatton Fermor kt. ob. 1640, his second wife Anna (Cockaine) and their children; there are full-sized erect effigies of both, the knight being in armour, and the monument also includes several busts; another fine monument of statuary marble, by Baily, with a full-sized group of children weeping over medallion portraits of their parents, is inscribed to George, 2nd Earl Pomfret and Baron Lempster, d. 9th June, 1785, and Anna Maria (Drayton), his countess, d. 1787: on the north side is a marble monument, by Baily, to George, 3rd Earl Pomfret, d. 29th June, 1833, with a full-sized sitting effigy in alto-relieve; both these memorials display the arms, coronet, crest and supporters of the family: there are 150 sittings.


Civil Registration

For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.


Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Easton Neston with Hlllcote from the following:


Land and Property

Easton Neston House is a palatial building of stone in the Italian style, erected by Sir William Fermor, and bart. and 1st Baron Leominster, or Lempster, from designs by Sir Christopher Wren and his pupil, Nicholas Hawkesmoor; it stands on high ground surrounded by lawns and pleasure grounds of 28 acres and in the centre of a well-wooded park of about 600 acres; the river Tove flows through the park.

The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Northamptonshire is available to browse.


Newspapers and Periodicals

The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Northamptonshire papers online: