Desborough Study: Transcriptions
POST OFFICE DIRECTORY 1877
DESBOROUGH
DESBOROUGH is a parish, village and station on the Midland
main line of railway, 6 miles north-west from Kettering, 5 south-east from Market Harborough,
18 north from Northampton and 81
from London, in the Northern division of the county, hundred of Rothwell, union and county court district of
Kettering, rural deanery of Rothwell, archdeaconry of Northampton, and diocese of Peterborough.
The church of St. Giles is
cruciform, having chancel, nave, aisles and transept tower with
a handsome spire, 5 bells and clock, and contains several ancient monuments to the Poulton family, members of which, for fourteen generations, held the lordship of the manor; the windows generally
are good, and the church is a fine specimen of Early English architecture;
the church is gradually being restored as funds will admit, portions have
been re-roofed, the gallery has been removed, a lectern, prayer-desk and
pulpit have been added; there is also a stained widow representing Our
Lord's Resurrection and the Raising of Jairus' Daughter.
The register dates from the year 157l, but there is a vacancy in the register of baptisms and burials from 1679
to 1686, and of marriages from 1681 to 1695. The living is a vicarage, yearly value £165, in the gift of W. C.
Clarke Thornhill, esq., and held by the
Rev. William Wilson, B.A.,
late scholar of Queen’s College, Oxford.
There
are National and Sunday schools; also chapels for Methodists, Baptists, and Congregationalists;
a Board school is now (1877) being erected.
The charities include one from the late Mrs. Biggs,
of £226, the interest to be given in prizes and rewards to the Sunday school scholars; also
Sewell’s and
East's charities, of £2 annual value. The manufacture of shoes gives employment to a great many hands.
The principal landowners are W. C. Clarke-Thornhill, esg, who is lord of the manor, O. W. Holden- Hambrough,
esq.,
Colonel Arthur, J.P. H. C. Wise, esq. and Mrs. Wise.
The soil is clay, sand, and
contains ironstone; subsoil, various. The chief crops are wheat, barley,
turnips and oats. The parish extends over 2,410 acres; rateable value
£11,494; the population in 1871 was 1,436.
Sexton, John Deacon.
POST & MONEY ORDER OFFICE & Savings Bank.—Thomas Marlow, postmaster. Letters through Market Harborough are delivered at 8.40 a.m.
& 5.30 p.m.; dispatched at 10 a.m. and 6.15 p.m. week days only; there is no delivery or dispatch of letters
here on sunday. The telegraph office is at the railway station.
National School, Miss D. Baguley, mistress
Railway Station,
Thomas Gadsby, station master.
[GENTRY]
Arthur, Colonel Thomas, J.P.
Booth, Mrs
Hickman John
Riley Benjamin
Wilson, Rev. William, B.A. [vicar]
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