Exton (St. Peter and St. Paul)

EXTON (St. Peter and St. Paul), a parish, in the union of Oakham, hundred of Alstoe, county of Rutland, 5¼ miles (N. E. by E.) from Oakham; containing 881 inhabitants. It comprises 3856 acres. The surface is generally flat, with a gentle undulation on one side, forming a small valley; the soil is partly a reddish mould resting on limestone, alternated with red rock, and partly a strong loam resting upon clay. The living is a discharged vicarage, valued in the king's books at £8. 7. 8.; net income, £325; patron and impropriator, the Earl of Gainsborough: the tithes were commuted for land and a money payment, under an inclosure act of the 39th of George III. The church is a spacious and elegant structure, chiefly in the early, and partly in the later, English style, with a tower strengthened by buttresses, and surmounted by a spire; it contains several finely-executed monuments to the Noel family and their connexions. A school, at present on the national system, was established in 1702 by Henry Foster, Esq., who endowed it with property now producing £30 per annum. Numerous fossil remains are discovered. A small mound in the parish, bearing the name of Robin Hood's Cave, is supposed to have been a retreat of that celebrated outlaw.