TINGEWICK, in the hundred and deanery of Buckingham, lies two miles and a half west of Buckingham, on the road to Banbury. It had formerly a weekly market on Tuesdays, granted in 1246, to the abbey De Monte Rothomago, in Normandy, to which monastery the manor had been given by the family of Finmore, in 1210: it was purchased of the abbey, by William of Wickham, and by him made part of the endowment of New College, in Oxford.
In the parish church is a curious brass plate against the east wall of the chancel, with a half-length portrait of Erasmus Williams, rector of Tingewick, who died in 1608, neatly engraved. He is represented with uplifted hands, in the attitude of prayer, and habited in a gown. On each side of him is a pillar, on which hang astronomical, musical, and geometrical instruments, painting utensils, various books, &c. On the top of one of the pillars is a globe, on the other an owl. There are various other devices, as a sun and rainbow, &c. and several texts of scripture. Underneath is the following epitaph :
"This doth Erasmus Williams represent,
"Whom living all did love, dead all lament;
"His humane Arts behind his back attend,
"Whereon spare hours he wisely chose to spend;
"And from Corinthian columns deck'd with arts,
"Now to the Temple's pillar he converts,
"Under the rainbow arch of promise, where
"Of hoped bliss no deluge he need fear:
"He of this church did a firm pillar live,
"To whom dead his wife doth these pillars give.
"Continued by his scholar and his friend,
"Who wsth'd their love and lives had had one end,
"Erasmus More's Encomium set forth,
"We want a More to praise Erasmus' worth."
At the corner is the name of R. Haydocke, who, if he wrote the epitaph, was a much better artist than poet. That he was the artist there can be little doubt, and that it was Dr. Richard Haydocke, the physician, who was a contemporary of Mr. Williams: he translated Lomatius on painting and engraving, and engraved his own portrait and other plates for that work.
The warden and scholars of New College are patrons of the rectory, to which a manor is annexed. The advowson belonged formerly to the priory of Harmondsworth, in Middlesex. The parish has been inclosed by an act of parliament, passed in 1773, when an allotment of land was assigned to the rector in lieu of tithes, and a small allotment to the poor in lieu of their right to cut furze.
Francis Edmonds, the late rector, who died in 1759, founded a charity school for six boys and six girls, and left an endowment for instructing and clothing them.
