was purchased by Lieut. Col. Mordaunt Cracherode, who sailed round the world with Lord Anson, and performed the office of Cup-bearer at the coronation of his present Majesty. His only son and successor, the Rev. Clayton Mordaunt Cracherode, was a celebrated collector of literature, and on his death, in 1799, bequeathed a very valuable collection to the British Museum. Wimondley then became the property of his only sister and heiress, Mrs. Ann Cracherode, a maiden lady, who died in 1802, in her eighty-fifth year. The site of the ancient Castle may be traced from the unevenness of the ground at a little distance from the Church. At LITTLE WIMONDLEY was a PRIORY for Austin Canons, founded by Richard de Argentine in the time of Henry the Third, and dedicated to St. Lawrence.* Chauncy tells us, that this was a Cell of Canons Regular of the Order of St. Benedick, which Henry the First confirmed to the Abbey of St. Alban; but he is certainly mistaken, as the grant of Henry the First relates to Wimondhamn, in Norfolk. The Priory of Wimondley appears to have possessed property at Temple Dinsley and Tewing in this county; at Shefford, in Bedfordshire; and at Beeston, in Nottinghamshire; and its entire revenues at the time of the Dissolution, were, according to Dugdale, estimated at the yearly value of 291. 19s. 84d. but according to Speed, at 371. 10s. 6d. Henry the Eighth leased the site and demesnes of the Priory to James Needham, Gent. Clerk and Surveyor of the King's Works, of the ancient family of the Needhams of Derbyshire; and the fee of the property was afterwards conveyed, by the Crown, to John Needham, his son and heir, in whose descendants this estate continued till the death of George Needham, Esq. in 1726. His daughters and co-heiresses sold it to Samuel Vanderplank, Esq. and it was lately the property of Christopher Clitherow, Esq. in right of his lady, grand-daughter to Mr. Vanderplank; but was advertised for sale in November last. The manor is co-extensive with the Priory demesnes, and comprehends about 300 acres. The site of the Priory is in a very retired situation between the villages of Great and Little Wimondley. WIMONDLEY BURY, in Little Wimondley, * Tanner, from M. S. Corp. Christ. Coll. Oxon, p. 154. mondley, has descended in the same manner as Great Wimondley, from the period of the Conquest. Here is standing a Chesnut Tree of very considerable antiquity and magnitude. WIMONDLEY HOUSE, formerly the residence of a private gentleman, is now the principal academy for the education of Presbyterian ministers; and has been enlarged, for the accommodation of two tutors and twenty-four students. This institution originated at Northampton in 1729, and owes its endowment, which consists of funded property to a considerable amount, to William Coward, Esq. an opulent West India Merchant, who lived at Walthamstow.* The celebrated Dr. Philip Doddridge was the first tutor, and continued to officiate as such during twentytwo years; in which time 200 persons, chiefly ministers, had studied under his direction. In 1752, the academy was removed to Daventry, under the care of Dr. Caleb Ashworth; and thence back to Northampton; and finally to this place in 1799; when the Rev. Messrs. Parry and Ward were appointed its resident tutors, by the trustees acting under the directions of Mr. Coward's Will. The library contains a valuable assemblage of upwards of 10,000 volumes of the best authors in divinity, criticism, classics, mathematics, topographical antiquities, &c. together with a cabinet of medals, a collection of natural history, and other curiosities. BALDOCK. THE manor and parish of Baldock are co-extensive, and contain about 120 acres of land, the far greatest part of which is occupied by the streets, houses, and malt-houses, of the town. The manor was originally parcel of the great manor and parish of Weston, but was detached, and given to the Knights Templars, by Gilbert, Earl of Clare and Pembroke, together with the Church of Weston, about This gentleman founded a similar seminary at Hoxton, near London, which was dissolved about the middle of the last century. Drs. Savage, Kippis, Rees, and Jennings, were its tutors. The library and endowment has reverted to the establishment at Wimondley. about the fourth or fifth year of King Stephen. The Templars, who probably regarded it as convenient for Inus, from its situation at the intersection of the great north road from London to York, with the Icknield Way, built a town here before the time of Henry the Third, as appears from the confirmation charter made of this estate to the Knights Templars by William le Mareschal, Earl of Pembroke, great grandson of Gilbert Strongbow. By the same charter he confirmed to them divers privileges, among which was the power of trial by battle, and by ordeal.* King John and Henry the Third granted them additional liberties, among which were those of holding a five days annual fair, and a weekly market. The grant of the fair (made with that of the market, by Henry the Third, in his first year) has the words "fratribus Leprosis apud Baldoc;" from which it seems that the Templars had some place of retirement here, on account of the salubrity of the air, for such of their brethren as were afflicted with the leprosy; a disease which in those days was very common in England, probably, in consequence of the frequent communication with the countries in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, conjoined with the unskilfulness of our professors in surgery and medicine. On the dissolution of the Knights Templars, and the subsequent union of their order with the Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, this manor became vested in the latter; and in the seventh of Henry the Seventh, that Sovereign, by Letters Patent, granted to John Kendal, Lord Prior of St. John of Jerusalem, gave him, his fraternity, and successors, liberty to hold a weekly anarket, and two fairs annually, in this town. After the Dissolution, Henry the Eighth granted this manor to Thomas Rivett,+ of London, Mercer, who was owner in the eighth of Elizabeth; and, on surrendering a former patent, obtained a new grant of a Saturday For the various formula observed in these different modes of trial, see Chauncy's Herts, p. 377-381; and Dugdale's Warwickshire, and Origines Juridiciales. The arms of the Rivetts, were three Trivetts in chief, sable, in allusion to the name of T. Rivett. Saturday market, and three fairs annually. He dying in the twenty-fifth of the same Queen, left three daughters, his co-heiresses. The manor afterwards passed to the Hursts by purchase, but was sold from this family to the Clevers, about the beginning of the last century, by John, son of William Hurst, Esq. and Elizabeth, his wife, youngest daughter of Sir Henry Chauncy, the historian of this county. The Church is a spacious and handsome building, said by Chauncy to have been erected by the Knights Templars in the reign of King Stephen; but this assertion is evidently erroneous, the style of the architecture proving it not to be so old by at least two centuries; though it is probable from the stone coffins in the walls, and other sepulchral memorials, that it was built on the site of a former church. On a slab in the pavement of the nave, is engraven a large cross, ornamented at the points with leaves, and having the remains of an imperfect inscription round the verge, in Saxon characters, beginning with the words Regnabb: de: Argen thent. Weever has given the inscription at length, with a translation, as follows: Reignabld de Argentein ci gist Regnald de Argentyne here is laid In the north wall, under an arch, is an ancient stone coffin; and in the south wall, in similar recesses, are two others: in these, according to a tradition of the inhabitants, recorded by Chauncy, three Knights Templars were buried; and the two on the south side being opened in 1691, there was found in each, says the same writer," the fair skeleton of a man." Baldock is a great thoroughfare; and, besides the trade occasioned by this circumstance, many of its inhabitants have enriched themselves 2 selves by the malting business, and by dealing in corn. The prinIcipal street is wide, and many of the buildings are respectable. The population of the town, as returned in 1801, amounted to 1283; the number of houses, to 231. On WILBURY HILL, nearly three miles west from Baldock, are traces of an ancient Camp, or Fortification, which Salmon supposes to have been an amphitheatre; and mentions a silver coin, of the Empress Faustina, that was found here. The area included about seven acres, and is crossed by the Icknield Way: the rampart, on the east and north sides, is levelled; on the west it yet remains, about four or five feet high, bounded by a ditch: on the south are some straight banks, but such as are in many places made by the plough on declining ground;† this side is the most steep. In the year 1720, or 1724, between Caldecot and Henxworth, various ROMAN ANTIQUITIES were found by some workmen, employed in digging gravel; among them were large urns, full of burnt bones and ashes; some pateræ of fine red earth, with names impressed on the bottoms; glass lachrymatories, rings, beads, and fibulæ. Several human skeletons were also discovered, at the same time, within about a foot of the surface, with their heads pointing towards the south-east; and near them urns of difrent sizes. Some of these Antiquities appear to have been exhibited at the Society of Antiquaries, in 1724, by Mr. Le Neve, and Mr. Degge, who shewed them, "three pateræ, two patellæ of red earth, an ampulla, a small urn of different colours, a glass lachrymatory, the handle and neck of a glass simpulum, a stone handle of a sword, brass fibulæ, sundry small green glass beads, and a Danish or Dutch brass coin, found in Henxworth parish.”§ ASHWELL, called Escewelle in the Domesday Book, is supposed, by Camden, to be of Roman origin; and Salmon admits the probability of the conjecture, though he has taken some pains Hist. of Herts, p. 160. to + Gough's Camden, Vol. I. p. 342. Salmon's Herts, p. 339. § Gough's Camden, Vol. I. p. 342, from Minute Book of the Society of Antiquaries. |