Daylesford (St. Peter)

DAYLESFORD (St. Peter), a parish, in the union of Stow-on-the-Wold, Upper division of the hundred of Oswaldslow, Blockley and E. divisions of the county of Worcester, 5 miles (S. W.) from Chipping-Norton; containing 81 inhabitants. This place was exempted from the interdict in the reign of John: the manor, from the time of the Conquest, with the exception of about 70 years, was the property of the ancestors of Warren Hastings, the renowned governor-general of British India. The parish occupies a detached portion of the county, and comprises according to measurement, 650 acres; the soil is fertile, and the meadow and pasture lands are of the richest luxuriance. The cultivation of cinquefoil was begun here in 1650, prior to its introduction into any other place in the kingdom. Stone is quarried for the roads. The living is a rectory, valued in the king's books at £7, and in the patronage of Sir Charles Imhoff: the tithes have been commuted for £200, and there are nearly four acres of glebe, and a newly built glebe-house. The church, one of the oldest structures in this part of the country, and in the Norman style, was, with the exception of two of the arches, taken down and rebuilt with the old materials, in 1816, by Mr. Hastings; it stands north of the village.