Lowick / Luffwick

"LOWICK, (or Luffwick), a parish in the hundred of Huxloe, county Northampton, 2 miles N.W. of Thrapston, its post town, and 8 N.E. of Kettering. A tributary of the river Nen flows through the parish. The London and North-Western railway has a station at Thrapston. The village is situated nearly in the centre of the parish. Coal and limestone are worked. A chantry for secular priests was founded here in the reign of Edward II., and was granted at the Dissolution to Sir Edward Montague. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Peterborough, value £308. The church, dedicated to St. Peter, is a commodious edifice, with a tower of peculiar construction, surmounted by pinnacles and a large octagonal lantern. It has windows of stained glass depicting some of the Israelitish kings, the apostles, and Sir Walter de Vere, the founder of the church. It contains several effigies, monuments, and brasses of the De Vere, Stafford, Wilton, and other families; one of brass to Henry Green, Esq., the founder of Drayton Hall in this parish, in the vicinity of which a portion of Roman pavement was found in the last century. There is a free school for 18 children, endowed by Sir John Germaine (whose family monument is in the church) with an income of £90. The late Duke of Dorset likewise founded and endowed a school of industry. The parochial charities produce altogether about £125 per annum. W. B. Stopford, Esq., is lord of the manor." [Transcribed from The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland 1868 by Colin Hinson ©2010]