DATA BASE REF: H 1044 and P1028

Notes from “A Northamptonshire Miscellany” ed Edmund White 1983

Note: Page numbers refer to the page in Edmund White’s book.

 

INHABITANTS

P 114 Table 1:

Men recorded in each parish and hamlet in Nassaburgh Hundred in 1762 and

All Inhabitants and all male inhabitants 1801

 

Village                                    1762                            1801 All                               1801 Male

Castor                          66                                475                                          251

            Ailsworth         28                                154                                          83

            Sutton              13                                110                                          59

            Upton               5                                  76                                            36

 

Marholm                      14                                109                                          56

 

Note that Castor was one of the biggest villages in the Soke and Hundred at the time. Only Eye was bigger. (The figures for Barnack include Pilsgate and Southorpe.) Other examples are as follows:

 

Barnack                       43}

            Pilsgate            16}74                          613                                          322

            Southorpe        15}

Eye                              85                                501                                          256

Glinton             50                                314                                          159

Helpston                       48                                301                                          155

Maxey                          52                                313                                          152

Northborough               32                                192                                          89

Peakirk                        24                                132                                          64

Ufford                          20                                120                                          63

Wansford                     16                                148                                          76

Wittering                      21                                194                                          85

 

 

P 117 Comment re Shepherds and John Clare

In 1762, more shepherds were recorded at Castor and its hamlets than in any other parish in Nassaburgh – 7 in all. Castor lies between Morton’s heathland and the River Nene and contains much pasturage, including river meadow. John Stimson, maternal grandfather of John Clare, the poet, was a shepherd in Castor, and his name appears in the Castor Militia List. Clare referred to him as having been a “town shepherd as they are called, who has care of all the flocks of the village…”, confirmation that sheep had a prominent place in the agricultural economy of Castor during the eighteenth century. John Morton (1712) observed that in the Nassaburgh Hundred Northants heathland “yields a sweet and cleanly Herbage, which feeds a Breed of small Sheep, whose flesh is usually much commended and esteem’d.” William Cobbett Rural Rides more than a hundred years later says of Nassaburgh Hundred stated “Here as all over the country (sic) everlasting fine sheep.”

 

P 122 John Stimson of Castor: maternal grandfather of John Clare the poet.

John Stimson married Elizabeth Daves at Castor on 5 November 1750; he was a shepherd who has already been noticed in the section on shepherds in Nassaburgh. His daughet Ann, who was baptised at Castor on 17 April 1757, married Parker Clare of Helpston, but not at either Castor or Helpston and the whereabouts and date is not known (1982). John Clare the poet was their son.

 

P 33 n149 The Waterville Family at Marholm AD 1240

The Waterville family held Marholm in the Soke of Peterborough, and land in Thorpe Achurch, Titchmarsh, and Clapton itself: Pytchley, pp41-45. An assise of novel disseisin was taken at Clapton on 4 November 1240, which shows Reginald of Waterville succeeding his father and establishing his lordship in Marholm; he died in 1287: Curia Regis Rolls, xvi, no 2465; Pytchley, p45, note.

 

P 115 re Robert Collinge of Marholm

Since (the Militia) list was displayed on the door of the parish church, it may seem rather hard that Robert Collinge, who kept a public house at Marholm, should have been described as having “remarkable crooked legs”, especially as this unflattering disability did not earn him an exemption.