Budworth, Little, (St. Peter)

BUDWORTH, LITTLE, (St. Peter), a parish, in the union of Northwich, First division of the hundred of Eddisbury, S. division of the county of Chester, 3¾ miles (N. E. by E.) from Tarporley; containing 599 inhabitants. This place is also called Budworth in the Frith, and Little Budworth cum Oulton. The manor of Little Budworth was anciently vested in the Grosvenors, from whom it passed by female heirs to the families of Mere and Twyford; about the year 1431 it was purchased of the latter family by the Troutbecks, from whom it descended to the Earl of Shrewsbury, the present owner. The manor of Oulton was successively in the families of Kingsley, Oulton, and Done; a daughter of the last named brought it by marriage, about 1500, to the Egertons. Oulton Hall, the seat of Sir Philip de Malpas Grey Egerton, Bart., stands in an extensive park, and is a magnificent structure, said to have been from the designs of Sir John Vanbrugh, and erected about the commencement of the last century, when the former mansion, built in the reign of Henry VIII., was taken down. The parish comprises 2763 acres, whereof about 600 are common or waste land: the soil is sand and clay.

The living is a perpetual curacy; net income, £85; patron and appropriator, the Bishop of Chester. The tithes have been commuted for £163. 14., and the glebe consists of 5½ acres. The church belonged previously to the Dissolution to St. Mary's nunnery, Chester, and was called a free chapel within the parish of Over, the church of which was appropriated to the same convent: the nave and chancel were rebuilt with stone, in 1798, pursuant to the will of Mr. Ralph Kirkham, a native of the parish, who gave £1000 for that purpose. A school, erected in 1706, by Catherine, Lady Egerton, near the park wall at Oulton, is supported by Sir Philip and Lady Egerton. Lady Isabella Dod, by will dated in 1720, bequeathed £2500 for the erection and endowment of almshouses for the support of twelve poor persons of Little Budworth, and eight of a town in Buckinghamshire: the income from the property is now about £130. Horse-races were formerly held on a four-mile course in the parish.