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Doddington (St. Mary)

DODDINGTON (St. Mary), a parish, in the union and hundred of North Witchford, Isle of Ely, county of Cambridge, 4½ miles (S. by W.) from March, on the road to Chatteris; containing, with the chapelries of Benwick and March, and the hamlet of Wimblington, 8648 inhabitants. The manor was one of the ancient estates of the church of Ely, and was alienated by Bishop Heton to the crown in 1600; it soon afterwards became the property of the Peytons, who appear to have been settled here nearly a century before, as lessees of the bishop. John Peyton was created a baronet in 1660, and dying without issue, his next brother, Algernon, was advanced to the same dignity in 1666. The title again becoming extinct in 1771, on the death of Sir Thomas Peyton, who was the last male heir of the family, Henry Dashwood, Esq., whose father had married a daughter of Sir Sewster Peyton, succeeded to the estate, took the name of Peyton by act of parliament, and was created a baronet in 1776. The parish is the most extensive in the county, and one of the most extensive in the kingdom, containing 38,000 acres of rich land. The living is a rectory, in the patronage of Sir H. Peyton: the tithes have been commuted for £9956. There are chapels of ease at Benwick and March. In 1847 an act was passed for dividing the parish and rectory into three parishes and rectories. The sum of £500 given in 1719 by Lionel Walden, Esq., a native of the parish, for the erection and endowment of a free school, having for many years remained unappropriated, had accumulated in 1837 to £1817. 17. 8. three per cent. consols., producing a dividend of £54. 10. 8., in support of the school. In this parish is situated the union workhouse.

Transcribed from A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858.

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