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Mountsorrel Town Rents

In 1687 the Commissioners for Charitable Uses reported on their investigation into the ‘Town Rents’ charity. They were working under the Act to redress the Misimployment of Lands, Goods, and Stocks of Money, heretofore given to Charitable Uses.

They discovered that:

The rents from property and land in Mountsorell, Quorndon, Barrow sur Soarum, and Roathlye were long since given by some person or persons unknown to several inhabitants of the Mountsorell, to be by them employed towards charitable uses. A schedule of the property and land is given below.

Part of the ‘rents’ were paid to the curate and part to the chapel clerk with the rest being used for repairing the highways, and other necessary uses.

John Smith and Adrian Gregory were the surviving trustees for the collecting and paying the rents.

Ralph Thurman, had not paid his town-rent of eleven shillings and eight pence per annum, for eleven years and half ending the four and twentieth day of June last, amounting in the whole to six pounds, fourteen shillings, and two pence.

All the trees of oak, ash, or elm, growing, in the parcels of land mentioned in the schedule ought to be applied to some charitable uses within the town of Mountsorell, except the trees in the chapel yard, and one close of John Jarratt called Bagnall’s Close.

The Schedule

Description of propertyOwnerOccupied byRent pa
Chapel Yard Close and another closeMr SmalleyMr Smalley8s 8d
A messuage called the Swan Inn
Field near the wood called Hawcliffe Wood
John Oldershaw
John Oldershaw
Edward Thornton
5s 4d
A messuage called the White LionRichard IrelandSamuel Hood11s 2d
A messuageRalph ThurmanRalph Thurman11s 8d
A piece of land in Quorndon called Daw PieceMr ThistlethwaiteMr Thistlethwaite1s 8d

There was another commission into charities in England and Wales which lasted from 1812 to 1839. The report on the charities of Mountsorrel, published in 1838, referred to the Town Rents charity  as the Unknown Donor’s Charity. It states that in November 1650, whereby Ralph Smalley conveyed all and singular the messuages, cottages, houses, edifices, and lands in Mount Sorrell, Rothley, Barrow, and Quorndon, which he had of the gift and feoffment of George Jarrett and others, to the use of himself and several other persons, their heirs and assigns.

It also states that the curate to be paid £5pa, 20s yearly to be paid to the schoolmaster to teach the children of the poor, 13s 4d. to be paid yearly to the chapel clerk and the residue should be yearly paid to the poor of both ends of the town of Mountsorrell. The curate and schoolmaster to collect the rents and give them to the overseers to distribute among the poor. The curate and schoolmaster also to keep an account of the receipts and payments.                                                   And it was further decreed that the surviving trustees should  appoint new trustees, and that when there were only three of the trustees living, that they should appoint 10 other persons living in Mountsorrel.

When the school was ‘taken over’ in 1746 by Sir Joseph Danvers to set up his free school he required that the trustees of the Town Rents should continue to pay twenty shillings a year to the Chappel Yard schoolmaster as they had to the previous headmaster, James Freeman; otherwise only 4 boys from Mountsorrel, not 8, would receive free education.

The 1838 commission reported that new trustees were appointed, the last two in 1727, but the charity was not recorded in the Parliamentary Returns of 1786.

They also stated that the income of this charity probably arose from fee-farm rents, but the lands described in the schedule cannot be identified, due to the changes made in the description of all the property in the parish by the inclosure of 1781. This charity must therefore be considered to be lost.

Note fee-farm properties are freehold properties although the owner is subject to annual rents, effectively leases forever.

Consolidated Charities

The Consolidated Charities were formed in 1680. Money donated by six benefactors was used to purchase land in Barrow on Soar. The six benefactors were Thomas Jarrat, Thomas Marriot, Thomas Godard, Mr Watkinson, Ralph Allen and John Thorp. This is recorded on the charity boards in St Peter’s church and summarised in the table below

Continue reading “Consolidated Charities”

Thomas Statham

Thomas Statham left 10 shillings to be paid to the minister of the north end for preaching a sermon on the Sunday before Epiphany (6 January). And 20 shillings for 40 sixpenny loaves to be distributed to the poor on the Sunday before Epiphany.  This is recorded on two of the three charity boards in St Peter’s Church.If there was no minister then sixpenny loaves were to be provided for the poor on the first Sunday in October. Continue reading “Thomas Statham”

A Giant or Devil named Bell

Francis Peck FSA
Francis Peck FSA

An early reference to the giant or devil named Bell  The story of Bell the giant can be found in ‘Bygone Leicestershire’, edited by William Andrews and published in 1892, as well as  ‘A Provincial Glossary with a Collection of Local Proverbs and Popular Superstitions’ by Francis Grose published in 1787. In both cases the story is attributed to Peck.

Francis Peck FSA (1692-1743) was an antiquarian,naturalist and rector of Goadby Marwood and his major publication was the two volume ‘Desiderata Curiosa’ published in 1732-35. So the story goes back at least 280 years.

In fact it may be even older.

John Earle (1601 to 1665) wrote describing a journey taken one summer from Oxford to York.He mentions the myth that Mountsorrel in Leicestershire had been moved by the devil (Erudite Satire in Seventeenth Century England by Felicity Henderson)

Continue reading “A Giant or Devil named Bell”

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