Croxton Kerrial

 

 Extract from White's Leicester and Rutland Directory 1877

CROXTON KERRIAL, or Croxton Kyiel, is a pleasant village and parish, on a bold declivity of the Wold hills, :3 miles S. by E. of Belvoir Castle, and 9 miles N.E. of Melton Mowbray, in Framland Hundred Grantham Union and County Court District; it contained, in 1871, 618 persons, living in 121 houses on (including the area of Bescaby parish) 3900 acres of land. The assessment to the county rate in 1876 was £4138. Most of the soil is an indifferent marl, and the surface hilly, but more than half is arable. The parish was enclosed in 1760, when the vicarial tithes were commuted for 198 acres. All the rest belongs to the Duke of Rutland, who is lord of the manor. In 1060 Croxton was held by the King, and had 24 carucates and two ploughs in the demesne, 5 bondsmen, 22 villans, and 2 bordars, with 2 ploughs ; 30 socmen, with 8 ploughs, 30 acres of meadow, and 2 mills. Soon afterwards William the Conqueror gave it to Robert Mallet, Baron of Eye; but King Stephen gave it to his natural son, William, Earl of Montaigne, &c. In the 13th and 14th centuries it was held, mostly under the Abbey, by the Criol, Curiel, or Kyriel family. The Duke of Rutland has here a pleasant hunting seat, called CROXTON PARK, built by John, third Duke of Rutland, about 1730, with extensive stables, near one of the sources of the Deven, about 2 miles S.W. of Croxton village, and 71/2 miles N.E. of Melton Mowbray. The Park comprises 777 acres, of which about 400 are in the parish of Bescaby. It has extensive woods, plantations, and fish-ponds. Horse Races are held in the Park yearly, for one day in the last week in March or first week in April. They were established about 60 years ago, and are highly popular, being numerously attended by the gentlemen of Melton and neighbouring Hunts. The principal stakes are the Granby Handicap, the Gold Cup, the Billesdon Coplow Stakes, the Farmers' Plate, the Melton Plate, and the Scurry Stakes; and the sport is usually of the first order, most of the horses being highly-bred hunters, attached to the Quorn, Belvoir, and Cottesmore Hounds. Queen Victoria and the late Prince Consort, whilst guests at Belvoir Castle, met the Duke's hounds in this park, December 6, 1843, and threw off at Melton Spinney. CROXTON ABBEY, which stood on the Bescaby side of the Park, was founded about 1150, by William, Earl of Montaigne, Parcarius de Linus, and Sir Andrew Lutterel, for White Canons, or Premonstratensians. It was dedicated to St. John the Evangelist, and was richly endowed by subsequent benefactors. Its church was a large and handsome structure, sometimes called St. John de Valle. The bowels of King John, who died at Newark, were buried here, after the abbot, who had been the King's physician, had embalmed his body, prior to its being sent Worcester. The clear annual revenue of the Priory was £385 0s. l0d. at the Dissolution, in 1534, when it was granted to the Earl of Rutland. When excavating for stone near one of the fish-ponds in the Park, a few years ago, a stone coffin, ornamented with a griffin's head, was found; also vestiges of a large oven some fragments of a tesselated pavement; and nearer to Bescaby are traces of several large buildings. A half a mile east of Croxton village are traces of a long entrenchment, supposed to have been thrown up during the civil wars, when Belvoir Castle was the bone of contention between the Royalists and Parliamentarians. The CHURCH (St. John the Baptist) consists of nave, with clerestory, chancel, side-aisles, south porch, and a fine square tower, adjoining the chancel, crowned by eight pinnacles, and containing six bells, and is of the Perpendicular period. There was a small chantry chapel on the south and one on the north. Qn the right hand of the south porch the holy water stoup still remains, and the door is a very fine specimen of 15th century work. The seats are of oak, having the ends very boldly and beautifully carved. The pulpit, reading-desk, and lectern are also of oak, the last-named being a gift of the children of the late Mr. Matthew Pound, as a memorial of him. The font stands in the nave, and is crowned by a magnificent carved oak cover, representing ivy, woodbine, wheat, &c. The vicar and his wife, on the anniversary of their 25th wedding-day, presented an organ to the church. The edifice was thoroughly restored in 1866-8, at a cost of £2300, raised by subscription, when the galleries, which were erected in 1828 and 1836, were removed. A new vestry was built on the north side of the chancel in 1873. The living is a discharged vicarage, valued in K.B. at £7 14s. 7d., and now at £300 per annum. There is a glebe of 198 acres. The Duke of Rutland is patron, and the Rev. George Searl Ebsworth, MA., is the incumbent, and has a good residence. The Rev. George Crabbe, the poet, was presented to this living in 1813. In the village is a WESLEYAN CHAPEL, built in 1834, and a NATIONAL SCHOOL, built in 1844, at a cost of £330, and attended by boys and girls, of whom 16 of the former are taught free, in consideration of £15 a year, derived as follows :-In 1711 William Smith left £100, to be laid out in land, for the education of poor children of Croxton. This sum, with £1000 left to Knossington Hospital, was laid out in the purchase of land at Hose. On the termination of an expensive suit in Chancery, in 1815, it was ordered that £5 a year should be paid to the schoolmaster by the Hospital trustees, together with arrears, amounting to £60, now lent at 4 per cent. interest. The schoolmaster has also £4 a year, as the interest of £100 left by Anthony Good in 1796. Edward Hallam, in 1683, left £100, the yearly proceeds to be divided as follows: one-sixth to the minister, one-sixth to the children catechised, and four-sixths to the poor. This legacy was laid out in the purchase of 14A. 2R. of land, now let for £16 16s, a year, which is distributed on Candlemas Day. This parish has £25 4s. a year from Chester's Charity (see page 143), and 7s. of it is distributed in Bibles, and the rest in money, among the poor on St. Thomas's Day. It has also the interest of £150 new three per cent. Stock, left by Ann Parnham, for the education of six poor children. The interest of £250, similarly invested, is divided among the poor widows of the parish. The poor parishioners also have, or ought to have, 6s. a year, left by Edward Rimington, out of land at Stonesby; the interest of £10, left by Rachel Ashbourne, and a yearly rent-charge of £15, out of land at Wykeham-cum-Chadwell, left in 1831, by George Ashbourne, for six poor old men who have not received parochial relief within twelve months preceding. The parish feast is on the Sunday after Old Michaelmas Day.

POST OFFICE at Mrs. Ann Fox's. Letters, viâ Grantham, but Knipton is the nearest Money Order Office.

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