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Kimbolton (St. Andrew)

KIMBOLTON (St. Andrew), a market-town and parish, in the union of St. Neot's, hundred of Leightonstone, county of Huntingdon, 10½ miles (W. by S.) from Huntingdon, and 63 (N. N. W.) from London; containing 1634 inhabitants. The town is pleasantly situated on the verge of the county, amidst sloping hills and woodlands diversified with fertile valleys. Kimbolton Castle, the magnificent residence of the Duke of Manchester, an ancient stone edifice in a spacious park, was the residence of Catherine of Arragon, first wife of Henry VIII., subsequently to her divorce; and it was here she died. A few females are employed in making lace, but the general occupation of the inhabitants is agriculture. The market is on Friday; and fairs are held on the Friday in Easter-week, for sheep and pedlery, and on December 11th, for cattle and hogs. A constable is appointed at the courts leet and baron held under the Duke of Manchester, who is lord of the manor. The living is a vicarage, valued in the king's books at £5, and in the patronage of his Grace. The church is surmounted by a lofty spire. There are places of worship for Baptists, Independents, Moravians, and Wesleyans. An ancient grammar school, of which the earliest notice occurs in 1600, is endowed with lands producing a rental of £131. In the parish are the remains of Stonely Priory, a convent of canons of the order of St. Augustine, founded by William Mandeville, Earl of Essex, about 1180, and dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary; the revenue, at the Dissolution, was valued at £62. 12. 3. Kimbolton gives the inferior title of Baron to the Duke of Manchester; it was the birth-place of Lord Kimbolton, afterwards Earl of Manchester, a parliamentary general in the civil war.

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

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