Compton, Fenny (St. Peter)

COMPTON, FENNY (St. Peter), a parish, in the union of Southam, Burton-Dassett division of the hundred of Kington, S. division of the county of Warwick, 8 miles (N. by W.) from Banbury; containing 615 inhabitants. By measurement made in 1836, this parish comprises 2077 acres, which are chiefly pasture: the Oxford canal passes through it, and there is a wharf for coal. Within the limits of the parish are some quarries of good building-stone. The village lies at the northern base of the Dassett hills, part of which range is included in the parish: to the east of the village were formerly two windmills; one was burnt down about eighteen years since, the other still remains. The living is a rectory, valued in the king's books at £15. 8. 4., and in the patronage of the President and Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, who purchased the advowson in 1733. The tithes were commuted for land in 1778; the glebe comprises altogether 412 acres, and there is a glebe-house, built in 1842. The church is a very ancient structure, and is mentioned by Dugdale as having been given in the time of Henry I. to the canons of Kenilworth: in the chancel were formerly three inscriptions in brass to the memory of the family of Willis; one only of these now exists. The Wesleyans have a place of worship; and a national school is supported by subscription. On the summit of Gredenton Hill, in the parish, are vestiges of a British camp in the form of a horse-shoe, 228 yards in length, and defended with six lines of ramparts, between which were fosses round the steep declivity of the hill. Sir Henry Bate Dudley, a comic writer of some note, was born here in 1745.