Desborough Study: Transcriptions
POST OFFICE DIRECTORY 1869
DESBOROUGH
DESBOROUGH is a parish and village, 6 miles north from Kettering, 5 south from Market Harborough, 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 Leicester and
Hitchin (Midland) Railway runs close to the village, where there is a neat station.
The church of St. Giles is
cruciform with a handsome spire, tower, 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, but is in need of restoration.
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., of Queen’s College, Oxford.
There
are National and Sunday schools; also chapels for Methodists, Baptists, and Congregational Independents.
A Literary and Mechanics’ Institute and Reading Room has been established by V. D. H. Carey-Elwes, Esq., who
has presented a selection of books for the use of its members. 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. G. Clarke Thornhill, Esg, who is lord of the manor, O. W. Holden Hambrough, Esq.,
Messrs. Biggs, Hickman, and Sumner, Miss Desborough, and H. C. Wise, Esq., M.P. The soil is clay, sand, and
contains ironstone; subsoil, iron-stone. The chief crops are wheat, barley and oats. The population in 1861 was
1,428 ; the parish extends over upwards of 2,380 acres.
Sexton, John Deacon.
Post Office.—John Perkins, 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. weekdays only; there is no delivery or dispatch of letters
here on Sunday. Rothwell is the nearest money order office.
INSURANCE AGENT.—Royal Fire & Life, James Yeomans
National School, Miss Ada Maria Lancaster, mistress
Railway Station,
Thomas Gadsby, station master.
[GENTRY]
Hickman John, esq
Riley Benjamin, esq
Culme-Seymour Capt. Michael
Thompson Mrs
Weech Robert, esq
Wilson Rev. William, B.A. [vicar]
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