Towcester Northamptonshire Family History Guide
Towcester is an Ancient Parish and a market town in the county of Northamptonshire.
Other places in the parish include: Caldicote, Caldecote, Handley, Handley Park, and Handley and Wood Burcote.
Alternative names:
Parish church:
Parish registers begin:
- Parish registers: 1678
- Bishop’s Transcripts: 1706
Nonconformists include: Baptist, Independent/Congregational, Wesleyan Methodist, and Wesleyan Methodist Reform.
Table of Contents
Adjacent Parishes
Parish History
The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales 1870
TOWCESTER, a small town, a parish, a sub-district, a district, and a hundred, in Northamptonshire. The town stands on Watling-street and the river Tove, at the termination of a branch railway 8¼ miles SSW of Northampton. It occupies the site of the Roman station Lactodurum; was known, in the Saxon times, as Tof-ceastre, at Domesday, as Tovecestre; suffered much in the Saxon times, from frequent attacks of the Danes; was refortified, in the time of Edward the Elder, by walls and other works, of which but faint traces remain.
It belonged, in the time of Henry VII., to the lawyer Sir R. Empson, a native, the son of a sieve-maker, raised to the chancellorship of the duchy of Lancaster, and eventually beheaded: is now a seat of petty sessions and county courts, and a polling place.
It consists chiefly of one long well built street; and has a head post-office, a banking office, two chief inns, a town hall and corn exchange, in the classic style, with dome, tower, and spire, built in 1866, a police station, erected in 1852, a theological library and reading room, a church of various periods, repaired in 1836, four dissenting chapels, an endowed grammar-school with £65 a year, national schools, a workhouse with capacity for 208 inmates, alms houses with £91 a year, and other charities £251.
A weekly market is held on Tuesday; fairs are held on 12 May and 29 Oct.; and malting, brewing, shoe-making, and pillow-lace manufacture, are carried on. Pop. in 1861, 2,417. Houses, 546.
The parish includes, three hamlets, and comprises 2,790 acres. Real property, £11,880; of which £30 are in quarries, and £90 in gasworks. Pop., 2,715. Houses, 610. The manor belongs to Sir T. F. Hesketh, Bart. An artificial mound, called Bury Mount, is on the NW side of the town; appears to have been anciently fortified; and has yielded many Roman relics. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Peterborough. Value, £300. Patron, the Bishop of Lichfield.
Source: The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales [Wilson, John M]. A. Fullarton & Co. N. d. c. [1870-72].
Parish Records
FamilySearch
Northamptonshire Historical Directories
Administration
- County: Northamptonshire
- Civil Registration District: Towcester
- Probate Court: Court of the Archdeaconry of Northampton
- Diocese: Peterborough
- Rural Deanery: Brackley
- Poor Law Union: Towcester
- Hundred: Towcester
- Province: Canterbury