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Irthlingborough (All Saints, and St. Peter)

IRTHLINGBOROUGH (All Saints, and St. Peter), consolidated parishes, in the union of Wellingborough, hundred of Huxloe, N. division of the county of Northampton, 2 miles (N. W.) from Higham-Ferrers; containing 1339 inhabitants. This place, anciently Hyrtlingberi, in the Saxon signifying "Farmer's Town," is situated on the river Nene, which forms two branches here, and bounds the parish on the south-east; it is intersected by the road from Higham-Ferrers to Kettering, and the railway from Northampton to Peterborough also passes through. The area is 3602a. 2r. 20p. Stone is quarried for common building purposes, and the repairing of roads. A part of the population is employed in the manufacture of shoes. The living of All Saints' is a rectory, with the vicarage of St. Peter's annexed, valued in the king's books at £5. 6. 8.; net income, £266, arising from glebe and funded property; patron and impropriator, Earl Fitzwilliam. Under an inclosure act, in 1808, an allotment of land was assigned in lieu of tithes and moduses; the glebe consists of 80 acres. St. Peter's church is a venerable pile, built in the form of a cross, with aisles and chantry chapels; it has a tower in the early English style, surmounted by a lofty octagonal lantern of later date, which contains two fireplaces. In the reign of Richard II. it was made collegiate, and endowed by John Pyel, mayor of London, for a dean and five secular canons, four prebendaries, and four clerks, who at the Dissolution possessed a revenue of £64. 12. 10.: there are some remains of the collegiate buildings, with a unique semi-subterraneous chamber. The church of All Saints has been demolished. Here are places of worship for Baptists and Wesleyans. William Trigg, in 1728, founded a school which he endowed with a rent-charge of £17; it is now a national school. The same benefactor left a small endowment for almshouses for widows; and £10 per annum were given for charitable purposes by Richard Glover. In the middle of the village stands a stone cross, the shaft of which, raised upon steps, is thirteen feet high, and was the standard for adjusting the provincial pole, by which the portions of the adjacent meadows were measured. The Vaux family, a female member of which obtained some celebrity from her connexion with the Gunpowder Plot, had a castle here; part of the foundation was dug up a few years since by the present incumbent, in enlarging his garden: it is supposed to have been destroyed by fire.

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

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