Kingsthorpe, Northamptonshire Family History Guide
Kingsthorpe is an Ecclesiastical Parish in the county of Northamptonshire, created in 1850 from a chapelry in Northampton St Peter Ancient Parish.
Parish church: St John the Baptist
Parish registers begin:
- Parish registers: 1539
- Bishop’s Transcripts: 1706
Nonconformists include: Particular Baptist
Table of Contents
Adjacent Parishes
- Dallington
- Boughton
- Abington
- Church Brampton
- Northampton Holy Sepulchre
- Northampton Priory of St Andrew
- Northampton St Edmund
- Moulton Park
Parish History
The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales 1870
KINGSTHORPE, a village and a parish in the district and county of Northampton. The village stands near the Northampton and Leicester railway, and a branch of the river Nen, 2 miles N by W of Northampton; is a considerable place; was formerly governed by a bailiff; and has a post office under Northampton.
The parish comprises 1,800 acres. Real property, £7,684; of which £60 are in quarries. Pop. in 1851, 1,586; in 1861, 1,906. Houses, 434. The increase of pop. was caused by the extension of the shoe trade.
The manor belonged anciently to the Crown. An hospital was founded here, in 1200, by Peter de Northampton; and was given by Queen Mary to the master of the Savoy. Kingsthorpe Hall is the seat of the Misses Boddington. A building-stone of excellent quality is quarried.
The living is a p. curacy in the diocese of Peterborough. Value, £700. Patron, St. Katherine’s Hospital, London. The church is partly Norman, partly later English.
There are a Baptist chapel, a national school, and charities about £70.
Source: The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales [Wilson, John M]. A. Fullarton & Co. N. d. c. [1870-72].
Parish Records
FamilySearch
Directories
History, topography, and directory of Northamptonshire, by Francis Whellan and co. 1874
KINGSTHORPE PARISH, Or Torp, as it is called in Domesday book, is bounded on the east by the parishes of Moulton and Abington ; on the north by that of Boughton ; on the west by the river Nene, which divides it from Dallington ; and on the south by Northampton. It contains 1830 acres, of the rateable value of £8900, and the gross estimated rental is £10,403 ; the population in 1801 was 909; in 1831, 1344 ; in 1841, 1467 ; in 1851, 1580 ; in 1861, 1905 ; and in 1871, 2408. The soil of the more elevated parts of the parish is a stiff marly loam ; and in the lower portions a light porous red earth prevails, well adapted for the growth of turnips and onions. The principal landowners, and lords of the manor, are Sir George Robinson, Bart., the Rev. William Thornton, Messrs Charles Danes, William Trasler, George Ashby, William F. Roberts, and Arthur B. Markham.
The Village, which is long and straggling, is situated on the Leicester Road, 1½ mile north by west of Northampton, near to a branch of the Nene. Bridges says it contained 140 families in his time, and it is traditionally reported that three coaches and six were formerly kept here. On the village green is a beautiful spring, called Kingswell, which has never been known either to fail or freeze; on the Semilongs are springs which possess the property of incrusting stone with calcareous crystal, and near the village is a quarry of white freestone of a delicate tint and soft texture, which hardens by exposure to the air. This quarry enjoys considerable local celebrity, having furnished stone for the erection of the general infirmary, the barracks at Northampton, and some of the neighbouring mansions. There are also extensive limestone quarries in this parish, and the limekilns here and at Duston are said to be the largest in the county.
The Manor of ‘ Thorp ‘ consisted of four hides and three virgates of land, which were held by the king at the time of the Conqueror’s survey ; there were also three mills worth 43s. 4d. yearly, with five acres of meadow, and one hide and a half and a bovate at Moulton and Weston Favell, which belonged to this manor, and the whole was valued at £15 yearly. “Those royal villas which were not of sufficient importance to become corporate boroughs,” writes Mr Baker, “were either placed under a prepositus or bailiff, who accounted for the proceeds as they arose, or were rented by an individual for a term of years at a certain sum, and what was obtained by rigid exactions beyond the stipulated rent constituted his profit. To these established modes Kingsthorpe formed one of the few exceptions ; the inhabitants themselves being permitted to hold their town at farm by lease from the crown.” It is supposed to have been first demised to them by King John ; Henry VI., in 1441 demised this manor to his tenants for forty years, at a yearly rent of £50 ; and in 1445, he granted £40 per annum out of the said rent to Queen Margaret for life in part of her dower. A similar annuity was granted to Elizabeth, Queen of Edward IV., in 1468 ;. and on the accession of Henry VII., the fee-farm rent of this town was appropriated by Parliament towards the maintenance of the royal household. In 1616, the manor, which continued to be held by successive lessees, was granted in fee to feoffees, to hold in trust for the other freeholders at a yearly rent of £40. Lady Pritchard erected a ” town house, consisting of one long room built neatly of stone, for the freeholders, or trustees to meet in,” and their common seal, which is now in the possession of the rector, is ” a crowned head between two fleurs delis, with this inscription round it, Sigillum commune dc Kingsthorp.” The office of bailiff and the manorial courts have been long since dispensed with, and no traces remain of the feudal dependence of its ancient berewicks at Moulton, Weston Favell, &c.
The Church, dedicated to St John the Baptist, stands on the west side of the village, and consists of an embattled tower surmounted by a handsome spire, a Norman nave, with portions of the original Saxon building, north and south aisles with chapels, in which are some fine decorated windows, and a chancel, in the Perpendicular style, under the east end of which is a crypt with central shaft and stone vaulting. The whole, with the exception of the tower and chancel, was thoroughly restored in 1863. The south aisle and porch were entirely rebuilt ; the gallery was removed, the west window opened to the Church, and the old unsightly pews were replaced by open oak benches. The expense of the restoration amounted to £2408. In the tower is a peal of five bells. There is a piscina in each of the chapels, as well as one near the altar. The living is a vicarage, annual value £700, in the gift of the chapter of St Katharine’s Hospital, London, and incumbency of the Rev. John Hulbert Glover, M.A.
The Vicarage House is at the north-western extremity of the village. At the enclosure of the Commons in 1776, 276 acres were granted in lieu of tithes.
The Baptist Chapel, erected in 1835, will seat about 350 persons. The Rev. Joseph Litchfield is the minister.
The National School, which stands about the centre of the village, is a plain substantial building, erected in 1840. It has an average attendance of 100 pupils ; and the Sunday school, which is held in the same building, has about 250 in attendance.
The Church School, built in 1872 in Semilong, at the southern extremity of the parish, is a good brick building, and will accommodate 150 children.
The Free School was endowed with an estate here and another in Kingston, Surrey, in 1753, by the Cooke family for the education of 30 children. The property having increased in value, a new schoolhouse was built in 1870 in the High Street. It is under the management of three trustees, who must belong to some sect of Protestant dissenters. The present master is the Baptist minister of Kingsthorpe.
Kingsthorpe Hall, the property and seat of the Rev. William Thornton, is about one mile north by west of Northampton.
On the east side of the entrance into the village from Northampton stood an hospital of St David, or the Holy Trinity, founded in the second year of the reign of King John (1200), for the reception of pilgrims and strangers. ” It consisted principally,” says Bridges, ” of one large body, wherein were three rows of beds for the use of the poor, the sick, and the stranger, with two chapels adjoining, one of which was dedicated to the Holy Trinity, and the other to St David.” The masters of this hospital were presented by the convent of St Andrew, and instituted by the Bishop of Lincoln. The clear yearly value of its revenues at the dissolution was £24, 6s. Two pillars, portions of an arch or gateway, and a few small arches in the cottage walls, are the only remains of this hospital at present.
Mr Baker tells us, that the quintain, a Roman military exercise, was formerly practised here, and in other parts of the kingdom, at the celebration of rural weddings. It consisted ” of a high upright post, at the top of which was placed a cross piece on a swivel, broad at one end and pierced full of holes, and a bag of sand suspended at the other. The mode of running at the quintain was by a horseman riding full speed and striking at the broad part with all his force ; if he missed his aim, he was derided for his want of dexterity ; if he struck it, and the horse slackened pace, which frequently happened through the force of the shock, he received a violent blow on the neck from the bag of sand, which swung round from the opposite end ; and if he succeeded in breaking the board, he was hailed as the hero of the day. The last, and indeed only instance of this sport,” continues the same historian, ” which I have met with in this county, was in 1722, on the marriage of two servants at Brington, when it was announced in the Northampton Mercury that a quintain was to be erected on the green at Kingsthorpe, and the reward of the horseman that splinters the board is to be a fine garland as a crown of victory, which is to be borne before him to the wedding house, and another to be put round the neck of his steed ; the victor is also to have the honour of dancing with the bride, and to sit on her right hand at supper.”
The Poor’s Close, or Bush Close, as it is called, consists of I4a. 13p. allotted at the enclosure, in lieu of their right of cutting furze. This is in the hands of trustees, who are required to distribute the proceeds, either in fuel or bread, to ” the most industrious, necessitous, and” honest poor persons of Kingsthorpe.” The other charities are as follow: — The Bread Fund, consisting of £280 consols, the interest of which is paid over yearly to the trustees by the Charity Commissioners, for the purchase of bread to be distributed weekly to appointed recipients. Pritchard’s Charity consists of £1228, 8s. consols, in the hands of the Charity Commissioners. A portion of the interest of which — viz., £6, os. 2d., is payable to Kingsthorpe for the purpose of apprenticing poor boys. Baxter s Charity (founded by the Rev. R. Baxter, late rector) consists of £1200, 3 per cent, reduced annuities, the interest of which is payable half-yearly for the following purposes — namely, to increase the salary of the parish clerk ; to provide certain payments to twenty-four poor persons nominated by the rector, and to increase the annual payment of the Pritchard Apprenticeship Fund, just mentioned.
Post-Office. — Miss Sophia Trasler, sub-postmistress. Letters arrive from Northampton at 5.30 A.M., and are despatched at 7.30 P.M.
Aldrich Mrs Susannah
Atkins Martin, compositor
Barber Samuel, house and land agent and assistant overseer
Brown Mrs Elizabeth
Clarke Edwin, carpenter and undertaker
Clarke John, fishmonger at Northampton
Collier Wm. Thos. currier, &c. at Northampton
Cox Mr Stephen
Cross Joseph, j. stonemason
Douglass Jph, rent and debt collector
Fitzhugh Richard, tailor
Gardner Fred, carpenter and undertaker
Gardner Mr John Paterson
Gardner Misses Sarah and Harriet
Gamer John, butcher
Glover Rev. John Hulbert, M.A. vicar
Hall Mr Joseph
Jennings Thomas, blacksmith
Lewis John, schoolmaster
Litchfield Rev. Joseph (Baptist) master of Free School
Moss Thomas, corn miller
Negus Mr Samuel Thomas
Parkins Mr Thomas
Swallow George Rushforth, miller, and corn merchant at Northampton
Thornton Rev. William, M.A. Kingsthorpe Hall
Tomalin Misses Mary and Frances Anne
Trasler John, carpenter, &c.
Trasler Mr William
Turner Mr William
Waterfield Miss Wybrow, dressmaker, &c.
Westgate Robert, draper’s assistant
Wood Mrs Julia Anne
Bakers.
Cooke William
Dale Charles
Hollowell William
Tatham George
Farmers and Graziers.
(Marked * are Yeomen}.
*Ashby George
Baldwin Richard
Cox Thomas, The Lodge
Cox William
* Cumberpatch Mark
* Danes Charles
Dunkley George
* Fitzhugh Charles (and butcher and maltster)
Longland Francis
* Roberts William Finney
Spencer John (and thrashing machine propr. and miller)
Inns and Taverns.
Cock, Francis Longland
Five Bells, William Goode
Halfway House ,Thomas Plumb
Rose and Crown, George Leonard
Beerhouses.
Brazier George (and bricklayer)
Cross Robert
Dix John
Gardner William
Johnson Benjamin
Love Cornelius
Parberry Mrs Rebecca
Waterfield George
Shopkeepers.
Barber Richard
Gardner William
Harris Thomas
Hine William
Hollowell William
Kelsey William
Lack Reuben
Norman John
Parbery Samuel
Reeve William
Weston Frederick
Weston John
For remainder of Directory see Northampton.
Administration
- County: Northamptonshire
- Civil Registration District: Northampton
- Probate Court: Court of the Archdeaconry of Northampton
- Diocese: Peterborough
- Rural Deanery: Northampton
- Poor Law Union: Northampton
- Hundred: Spelhoe
- Province: Canterbury