Standon (St. Mary)

STANDON (St. Mary), a parish,and formerly a market-town, in the union of Ware, hundred of Braughin, county of Hertford, 8 miles (N. E.) from Hertford; containing with the hamlets of Colliers-End, High-Cross, and parts of Puckeridge and Wadesmill, 2299 inhabitants. The parish comprises by measurement 7500 acres. The village is neatly built; the manufacture of paper affords employment to about 14 persons, and a few children. The market, granted by Charles II., has been for some time discontinued; a fair is held on the 25th of April, chiefly for pleasure. The living is a discharged vicarage, valued in the king's books at £14. 13.4., and in the gift of the Ward family: the great tithes have been commuted for £1310, and the vicarial for £520; the glebe comprises six acres. The church is a large ancient building, with a tower on the north side, and contains a handsome monument to Sir Ralph Sadlier, who was interred here. At High-Cross is a separate incumbency. There are places of worship for Baptists and Wesleyans; also a free school endowed by Thomas Fisher, in 1612, with £35 per annum, which subsequent benefactions have increased to £65. About five miles from Ware, on the Cambridge road, in the parish, is St. Edmund's College, established on the expulsion of the English Roman Catholics from Douay, at the commencement of the French revolution in 1789; it is for the education of the sons of the nobility and gentry of the Roman Catholic religion: the edifice was erected in 1795, and consists of a range of buildings four stories high, and 300 feet long. The ancient Ermin-street runs through the parish.