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Towcester in Northampton County England History and GeographyTOWCESTER, a market town and parish in the hundred of TOWCESTER, county of NORTHAMPTON, 8½ miles (S.W. by S.) from Northampton, and 60 (N.W.) from London, containing, with the hamlets of Caldicott, Handley, and Wood-Burcot, 2554 inhabitants. The name of this place is written, in Domesday-book, Tovecestre, 'a city, or fortified place, on the river Tove.' It is considered to have been a Roman station, from the discovery of numerous coins, especially on an artificial mount north-eastward of the town, called Berrymont hill; and on the north-west side are vestiges of a fosse, and the ruins of a tower, supposed to be Saxon: some antiquaries have thought that the station of Lactodorum should be placed here, in preference to Stony-Stratford. During the Saxon era, the town appears to have been so well defended as to have offered a protracted and effectual resistance to the attacks of the Danes: about the year 921, a mandate was issued, by Edward, for rebuilding and fortifying it, and it was surrounded by a stone wall, of which some vestiges are yet discernible. In the reign of Henry VI., a college and chantry were founded here by William Sponne, Archdeacon of Norfolk, the revenue of which, at the dissolution, was valued at £19. 6. 8. per annum. The town, which is situated on the river Tove, consists principally of one long street, composed of well-built houses, and paved under the direction of the trustees of the charities of Archdeacon Sponne, who devised the Tabart Inn, and certain lands, producing about £150 per annum, for that purpose; the inhabitants are well supplied with water. The manufactures consist of bobbin lace, boots, and shoes; and great advantages are derived from the situation of the town on the great road from London to Holyhead. The market is on Tuesday; and fairs are held on Shrove-Tuesday, May 12th, and October 29th, for cattle; on October 10th is a statute fair for hiring servants. A manorial court is held at Michaelmas, at which the constables for the parish are chosen. The living is a discharged vicarage, in the archdeaconry of Northampton, and diocese of Peterborough, endowed with £200 private benefaction, and £200 royal bounty, and in the patronage of the Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry. The church, which is dedicated to St. Lawrence, is a neat building of the eleventh century, in the early style of English architecture, and contains the monument of Archdeacon Sponne, who held the living in the time of Henry VI. Among the various incumbents was Pope Boniface VIII., at the time of his promotion to the pontificate, in 1294. Abthorpe, which was formerly a chapelry in this parish, was separated from it by act of parliament, about 1756. There are places of worship for Baptists, Independents, and Wesleyan Methodists. The grammar school was founded, in 1552, by the trustees of Sponne's charity, who, on the dissolution of the college and chantry, purchased and converted them to this use, with a house and garden for the master: the income, arising from bequests and donations, is £56. 2. 8.; the master's salary is about £30 per annum, and twenty-two boys are instructed on the foundation. The Sunday school, in which two hundred and forty children are taught, is aided by the dividends of a bequest from Sir John Knightley, amounting to £5. 14. per annum. Three almshouses were founded and endowed, in 1695, by Thomas Bickerstaff, of this place, and there are a few other bequests for the poor. In the vicinity is a petrifying spring. The Roman Watling-street passed along the site of the town. Sir Richard Empson, once proprietor of the manor, and a celebrated lawyer, who was promoted to the chancellorship of the duchy of Lancaster, in the time of Henry VII., and beheaded on Tower-hill, in the succeeding reign, in the year 1509, was the son of a sieve-maker in this town. About a mile and a half from Towcester, at Easton-Neston, is the seat of Earl Pomfret, formerly celebrated for its splendid collection of paintings and statues, presented, in 1756, to the University of Oxford, by the then Countees of Pomfret. From Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of England 1831, courtesy of Databases 4 Sale |
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