Hatfield Peverel

"HATFIELD-PEVERELL, a parish in the hundred of WITHAM, county of ESSEX, 3¼ miles (S. W., by S.) from Witham, containing 1101 inhabitants. The living is a discharged vicarage, in the archdeaconry of Colchester, and diocese of London, rated in the king's books at £8, endowed with £1000 private benefaction, £200 royal bounty, and £2500 parliamentary grant. J. Wright, Esq. was patron in 1823. The church, dedicated to St. Andrew, has received an addition of two hundred sittings, of which one hundred and twentyone are free, the Incorporated Society for the enlargement of churches and chapels having granted £150 towards defraying the expense. A school was endowed in 1638, by Sir Edward Alleyn, with £5.10. per annum. Miss Loveman, in 1820, erected four tenements for two aged married couples and two single persons, endowing them with eighteen shillings a week for the former, and twelve shillings for the latter. Here was a college for Secular canons in the time of William Rufus, founded by Ingebrica, wife of Ranulph Peverill, and dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene; it was converted by her son into a Benedictine monastery. The only remains of the buildings consist of the priory church, now parochial, which has a Norman door. The Chelmar and Blackwater navigation passes along the southern boundary of this parish, where it receives the river Ter." [From Samuel Lewis A Topographical Dictionary of England (1831) - copyright Mel Lockie 2016]