Streatley (St. Margaret)

STREATLEY (St. Margaret), a parish, in the union of Luton, hundred of Flitt, county of Bedford, 5 miles (N. by W.) from Luton; containing, with the hamlet of Sharpenhoe, 345 inhabitants, of whom 173 are in Streatley township. In Edward I.'s time the manor was vested in the Gobions, from whom it passed to the Botellers, and subsequently to the family of Nodes, from which it came by inheritance to the Goldsmiths. The parish is on the road from London to Bedford, and comprises by computation 2200 acres, of which 250 are pasture, 50 woodland, and the rest arable; the substratum is principally chalk. The living is a discharged vicarage, valued in the king's books at £6. 15. 2.; net income, £79; patron, Sir G. P. Turner, Bart.; impropriators, Messrs. Smyth and others. The church is in the decorated English style, and contains 200 sittings, of which 150 are free. The Rev. James Hadow, who was vicar for sixty years, from 1781 to 1841, died on his birthday, 30th January 1847, aged 90 years, and was buried under a beech-tree in the churchyard, of his own planting: a black-marble monument has been erected on the spot. Richard Norton, in 1686, gave a rentcharge of £10 in support of a school.