IRTLINBURG, IRTHLINGBURY, IRTLING BOROUGH, OR ARTLEBOROUGH CHURCH, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE. THE Church, of which we here present a south-east view, was formerly attached to a college of Irtlinburg, erected by the abbot and convent of Peterborough, and John Pyel, citizen and mercer of London (one of the commissioners to the states of Flanders, for redressing the grievances of the English merchants), by a license granted them by king Edward the Third for six secular canons or prebendaries (of whom one to be dean), and nine clerks, in the parish church of St. Peter of Irtlinburg; the right of presenting to the said canons' places to be in the abbot and convent of Peterborough, and in the said John Pyel, by turns; but the said John dying before this foundation was perfected, king Richard the Second, in consideration of twenty marks paid by Joan, the widow and executrix, granted her a license to complete the same, The Church comprises a body and two aisles, a chancel and two cross aisles; the body is in length 87 feet; the nave aisles 50 feet broad, and the cross aisles 90 feet long. At some distance from the west end of the Church, yet connected with it by the ruins of the college, stands a square embattled tower, 15 feet by 12; above which is an IRTLINGBOROUGH CHURCH. octagonal one; both together forming a height of 99 feet. In each of these towers are three apartments; between the windows of the square tower are four small figures, probably of saints; and under them a bend between two mullets pierced. In the wall, at the south side of the chancel, is a tomb of blue marble, the canopy supported by fretwork pillars; and also the tombs of a man and a woman, with labels. Near this is an alabaster tomb, with two figures cumbent, but no inscription; it has, however, been rationally conjectured to be that of the founder, John Pyel, and his wife Joan. On the north side of this chancel is another tomb, with the figure of a woman in alabaster, much defaced: this is thought to have belonged to dame Anne Cheyney. At the head of this, under arches, is a figure of a man in armour; his head on a cushion, and at his side a woman in the dress of the time. The revenues, by the survey taken at the dissolution, 26 Hen. VIII. amounted to 70l. 16s. 101⁄2d.; from which deducting 61. 4s. for rents and pensions, there was left a clear income of 64/. 125. 101d. The master of the college being both vicar and parson, a vicarage, of course, was endowed. Artleborough, for so it is most commonly (though corruptly) called, is about two miles from Higham Ferrers. |