Desborough

"DESBOROUGH, a parish in the hundred of Rothwell, in the county of Northampton, 5½ miles N.W. of Kettering, and 2 from Rothwell. It is a station on the Leicester, Market Harborough, and Hitchin section of the Midland railway. The village, which is built on a soft sandstone rock, is of considerable extent. Many of the inhabitants are employed in making silk plush for hats, lace, worsted, and in winding cotton. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Peterborough, value £149, in the patronage of W. C. Thornhill, Esq. The church, dedicated to St. Giles, is an ancient cruciform structure, with a tower and spire. The charities amount to £37 per annum. There are chapels for Baptists and Wesleyans. There are British and National schools. Ferdinando Pulton, the eminent lawyer, who compiled the Statutes at large from Magna Charta to the 16th James I., was born here, and lies buried in the chancel, where there is a monument to his family, who held the manor for fourteen generations." [Transcribed from The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland 1868 by Colin Hinson ©2010]