Witham (St. Nicholas)
The living is a vicarage, valued in the king's books at £22. 0. 7½., and in the gift of the Bishop of London, the appropriator: the bishop's tithes have been commuted for £820, the vicarial tithes for £285, and a rent-charge of £75 is paid to an impropriator; there is a handsome parsonage-house, and the glebe contains 102¼ acres. The church, situated at Cheping Hill, half a mile north of the main town, is a spacious and handsome edifice with a tower of brick, in the later English style, and contains many ancient monuments, including a large tomb erected in the reign of Elizabeth, to the memory of Judge Southcote and his lady, by whose effigies it is surmounted. The chapel of All Saints, within a few yards of the chief street of the town, was consecrated in November 1842; it is in the early English style, and cost about £3500: the east window is of stained glass. There are places of worship for Baptists, the Society of Friends, Independents, and Roman Catholics; also a national school supported partly by the rent of a house conditionally bequeathed in 1630, by Catherine Barnardiston. Two almshouses on Cheping Hill, for four widows, were endowed by Thomas Green, in 1491, with a farm in Springfield, let for £80 a year; and an almshouse for two widows was founded in the reign of Charles I., by means of a bequest from George Armond, Esq. Others established by Matthew Harvey, Esq., are occupied by nine persons; and there are five, for ten widows, endowed with a farm at Goldhanger and another at Fairstead, and having a total income of £165 per annum. Dr. Warley, amongst other benefactions, in 1719, left £100 in aid of a school; and C. Barnardiston bequeathed a similar amount to be distributed in bread and fuel. The union of Witham comprises 17 parishes or places, and contains a population of 15,407. In the neighbourhood is a mineral spring, which was formerly in great repute.
Transcribed from A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858.