CALDECOTT
Calcot, Calcoote, Caldecote (xvi-xvii cent.).
The parish of Caldecott covers 1,162 acres of clay
and loam land given up wholly to grazing. The ground
falls from the north, where it is over 300 ft.
above the Ordnance datum, to 170 ft. in the
south, where the parish and county boundary
is formed by the Eye Brook and River Welland.
The village is about 4½ miles from Uppingham
on the road to Kettering. It is approached
from the south over the Eye Brook by a stone
bridge with brick parapets, to the west of which
is the mill, now disused. In a will of 1615
mention is made of 'the milles of Caldecott.' (fn. 1)
The church is on the north side of the village.
Most of the houses are built of local ironstone; one in the main street, with thatched
roof, has a panel inscribed 'd.h. 1646'; and
another at the east end of the village, with
good four-centred doorway, is dated 1647. Near
the church is a house with panel inscribed
'R C E 1684,' and a cottage adjoining the
churchyard is dated 1729. Two other houses
have panels inscribed respectively 'w.w. 1774'
and 'I E B 1789,' and there are several 17th- and
18th-century undated houses, some with
mullioned windows, but in most cases wooden
windows have been introduced. A cross formerly
stood at the top of the village where the
three roads meet. Another cross at one time
stood on the Green, which is still known as
Cross Bank. The base of this cross survived
and was locally called the 'King Stone,' but
it was dug up a little while ago and used for
quoins for a wall in Black Horse Lane. (fn. 2) The
stocks are said to have vanished about 1835. (fn. 3)
The vicarage of Liddington-cum-Caldecott is
about a quarter of a mile north of the church
and has a lodge on the Kettering road. The
old vicarage of Caldecott is described in 1742 as a
building of three bays with a yard of half a rood,
which was then divided into two tenements. (fn. 4)
Caldecott: An Old House
The nearest railway station is Rockingham, a
quarter of a mile to the south.
In 1639 Robert Rudd, vicar of Liddington-cum
Caldecott, was defendant in a suit promoted by
Peter Woodcock, grazier, in the Court of High
Commission. It is stated in the sentence that Rudd
had been vicar of Caldecott 40 years and for sundry
years had omitted to read divine service at Caldecott;
he neglected to wear a surplice, but only a threadbare
coat with four skirts; he busied himself with sordid
employment and served a thatcher with straw; he
preached at Caldecott that Nebuchadnezzar was a
great grazier and did eat grass like an ox and died
like an ass, like divers graziers then did, referring, as
was thought, to Peter Woodcock, a grazier of the
parish; he refused on Palm Sunday to administer
the Communion to some forty parishioners, and at
other times, although having sufficient wine, he
used to draw away the cup from the communicants. The court ordered that he should
be suspended and another minister be put in
charge at a stipend to be paid out of the vicarage,
and further he should pay a fine of £100 and make
public submission. (fn. 5)
Manors
CALDECOTT was entered in the
Domesday Survey as pertaining to
two hides in Liddington (q.v.) held of
the Bishop of Lincoln. The two manors are still
held together and have shared the same history.
In 1246 a grant was made to
the Hospitallers of free warren
in their demesne lands in
Caldecott. (fn. 6)
Pipewell Abbey. Party argent three crescents gules and azure a crozier erect or.
Lands worth 18s. in Caldecott were returned in 1537 as
held with lands worth 2s. in
Halyoke (co. Leic.) by the
monastery of Pipewell (fn. 7) (co.
Northants.). In 1553 a grant
of 5 acres of meadow lying
upon Welland within the fields
of Caldecott in Liddington
parish, late belonging to Pipewell Monastery, and in the
tenure of William Conyers, was made to Anthony
Williams and John Conyers. (fn. 8)
It is said that the custom of Borough English
prevails in the manor. (fn. 9)
SNELSON (Smelestone, xi cent.) appears in the
Domesday Survey (1086) and again in 1286 and 1316
as held with Liddington (q.v.) by the Bishops of
Lincoln. It is now lost, but must have formed, with
Stoke Dry and Caldecott, part of the block of episcopal
property at the south end of the county, of which it
was perhaps the southernmost. In a grant of the
prebendal house in Liddington in 1650 there is
reference to Snelson's Field among the lands in
Caldecott held with that house. (fn. 10) The manor
of Snelston (Snelleston), held in 1243 by Emma de la
Legh in dower, reverted at her death to John de
Gray, (fn. 11) who held Whitwells Manor in Ketton (q.v.).
Church
The church of ST. JOHN THE
EVANGELIST consists of chancel 27 ft.
by 11 ft., with organ-chamber and vestry
on the north side, clearstoried nave 43 ft. 10 in. by
17 ft., south aisle 12 ft. 3 in. wide, south porch, and
west tower 10 ft. square, all these measurements
being internal. The tower is surmounted by a spire.
The width across nave and aisle is 32 ft.
The church was restored and the chancel rebuilt
in 1865, (fn. 12) and in 1908 the organ-chamber was added.
The chancel is built of coursed local ironstone and
has an eaved roof of Collyweston slates, but it retains
most of its ancient features. With the exception of
the porch, which is of ashlar, the rest of the fabric
is of ironstone rubble with modern tiled roofs;
the aisle has a plain parapet, but the nave roof is
eaved. The porch, which dates from 1648, is covered
with stone slates. Except at the west end of the nave,
all the walls are plastered internally.
The first church was an aisleless building with
short square-ended chancel, the extent of which is
represented by the two eastern bays of the present
nave and the western part of the chancel, probably
dating from the early part of the 12th century. (fn. 13)
There is a small round-headed window of this period,
with wide inner splay, in the south wall of the chancel,
approximately in its original position, but its jambstones have been misplaced. (fn. 14) West of this is a
tall lancet opening with transom, forming a lowside window. This belongs to alterations, amounting
almost to a rebuilding, made towards the end of the
13th century, when the chancel was lengthened and
remodelled and an aisle was thrown out on the south
side of the nave, the length of which was increased
westward by the addition of a bay. This is shown by
a break in the arcade between the second and third
bays from the east, where there is a masonry pier
with respond on each face, representing the position
of the early west wall, which probably remained
standing till the new work was completed. This
would be c. 1280–1300, to which period the chancel
arch, the nave arcade, and the aisle belong, together
with such original features of the chancel as were
retained at the rebuilding.
The east window is of three lights with uncusped
intersecting tracery and continuous roll moulding
to the rear-arch and jambs. Below the window, at
the back of the altar, is a large rectangular chamfered
recess probably for a reliquary, and in the south wall
a shouldered piscina the bowl of which is gone, and two
stepped sedilia with chamfered arches and dividing
shaft with moulded capital and base. There is a
rectangular aumbry in the north wall. The lowside lancet splays internally to 5 ft. Above the
piscina is a late 14th-century square-headed window
of two trefoiled lights, but there are no windows on
the north side. The chancel arch is of two chamfered
orders and hood-mould on the east side only, the
inner order on half-octagonal responds with moulded
capitals and bases, and the outer continued to the
ground. (fn. 15) Immediately south of the arch, in the
eastern part of the south wall of the nave, is the
doorway to the rood-loft, with plain pointed chamfered
head; it opens on to a fragment of beam, perhaps the
first joist of the loft floor. Four steps of the roodstair remain in the thickness of the wall, 5 ft. above
the floor. (fn. 16)
The two eastern arches of the nave arcade are of
two chamfered orders on half-octagonal responds
and octagonal dividing pillar, all with rather heavy
moulded capitals and responds. The western arch is
of similar character, but is
lower at the springing. (fn. 17) In
the south wall of the aisle
are two good pointed twolight windows with quatrefoils in the heads, and a large
moulded piscina, (fn. 18) the bowl
and hood-mould of which
are mutilated. There is an
image bracket in the east wall
south of the window, but the
window itself is a late 15thcentury insertion of three
cinquefoiled lights and fourcentred head. The west
window of the aisle appears
originally to have been like
those in the south wall, but
was altered in the 17th century and has now a plain
square head. The pointed
south doorway is of two continuous hollow chamfered
orders, with hood-mould, and the blocked north
doorway is of similar character but with three hollow
chamfers. The north wall of the nave is pierced by
two later openings, that at the west a two-light pointed
window of late 14th-century date, the other a late 15thcentury three-light window with four-centred head.
Towards the end of the 14th century the tower and
spire were erected, and the clearstory was added in
the 15th century, the north wall of the nave being
then heightened. The tower is of three stages,
marked by strings, with moulded plinth and large
clasping buttresses to the lower stage, above which
they are taken up to about a third of the height of
the bell-chamber in diagonal form. There is a projecting vice in the south-east angle. The pointed
west window is of two trefoiled lights similar to the
contemporary window on the north side of the nave,
but the four-centred doorway is a late 15th-century
insertion, with continuous hollow moulded jambs and
head. The pointed bell-chamber windows are of
two trefoiled lights with quatrefoil in the head, and the
tower terminates in an embattled parapet with a
grotesque gargoyle at each angle. The arch opening
to the nave is of two continuous chamfered orders
without hood-mould. The spire was struck by
lightning on 30 July 1797, (fn. 19) and was afterwards
rebuilt in Weldon stone. (fn. 20) It is twice banded and
has plain angles and two tiers of gabled lights on the
cardinal faces. On the south side, halfway between the
lights, is the date 1638, (fn. 21) and on the top portion 1797.
Plan of Caldecott Church
The clearstory has three four-centred windows of
two trefoiled lights on the south side, but the easternmost only is ancient; on the north side there are
two windows, placed immediately over those in the
wall below, the easternmost old and of three lights,
the other a copy of those on the south side, inserted
in 1865. (fn. 22) The tabling of the former low-pitched
nave roof remains on the west wall, the present highpitched roof and its gable being modern. A 15thcentury sanctus bell-cote has been rebuilt. (fn. 23)
The porch has a round-arched outer doorway of
two chamfered orders on moulded imposts, wooden
benches, and small square-headed side windows
In the gable is a panel with the date '1648.' (fn. 24)
The late 13th-century font has a rectangular bowl
with slightly sloping sides, each carved with a trefoiled
arch, and chamfered angles on which various geometrical patterns are incised. It stands on a cylindrical
stem and is on four legs, the moulded capitals and
bases of which alone remain unaltered, the shafts
having been turned in a lathe by a former churchwarden. (fn. 25) The pulpit (fn. 26) and all the fittings are
modern. (fn. 27) There was formerly a painting of the
Temptation in Eden on the north wall of the
nave. (fn. 28)
The only old mural monument, to Anne the wife
of William Goodman (d. 1712), is now in the vestry,
where is kept a chest inscribed 'r.d. 1724.' There
is a War Memorial tablet (1914–19) in the nave.
The Royal Arms of Queen Victoria are under the
tower.
There is a ring of five bells cast in 1696 by Toby
Norris (II) of Stamford. (fn. 29)
The plate consists of a cup and cover paten of
1637–8, with the maker's mark d.g. (fn. 30)
The registers before 1812 are as follows: (i) all
entries 1605–1724; (ii) baptisms 1725–83, marriages
1725–54, burials 1725–70; (iii) baptisms and burials
1783–1812; (iv) marriages 1755–1812. There are
churchwardens' accounts from 1807.
Advowson
Caldecott is a chapelry annexed to
the Vicarage of Liddington (q.v.).
Under the Commonwealth an augmentation of the stipend of the minister of Caldecott
of £31 a year was ordered which was approved in
1656. (fn. 31)
There are no charities in this parish.