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Hardwick, Priors (St. Mary)

HARDWICK, PRIORS (St. Mary), a parish, in the union of Southam, hundred of Knightlow, S. division of the county of Warwick, 5¾ miles (S. E.) from Southam; containing 280 inhabitants. This was one of twenty-four towns given by Earl Leofric, of Mercia, to the monks of Coventry, in the time of Edward the Confessor. After the Dissolution it came to the Knightleys, who alienated the estate to Sir John Spencer, and Edward Griffin, attorney-general to Queen Elizabeth: it subsequently devolved to Lord Spencer. The parish is bounded on the south and east by a portion of Northamptonshire, and comprises by measurement 1448 acres, of a highly productive soil. Stone of very durable quality is quarried for the roads and for other uses, and facilities of conveyance are afforded by the Oxford canal, the rateable annual value of which property in the parish is £626. The living is a vicarage, with the perpetual curacies of Priors-Marston and Lower Shuckburgh annexed, valued in the king's books at £23. 16. 0½.; net income, £480; patron, Earl Spencer, who, with the Vicar and James Beck, Esq., is impropriator: the glebe comprises 100 acres. The church is an ancient structure, in the early and decorated English styles; the chancel contains some curious details.

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

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