HORKSLEY (LITTLE)
The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales...., by John Marius Wilson. circa 1866
>HORKSLEY (LITTLE), a parish in Lexden district, Essex; contiguous to the SW side of Great Horksley, and 4 miles E of Bures r. station. Post-town, Great Horksley, under Colchester. Acres, 1,029. Real property, £2,919. Pop., 253. Houses, 54. The property is divided among a few. Horksley Hall is the seat of Mrs. Warren. A Cluniac priory, a cell to Thetford monastery, was founded here, in the time of Henry I., by Robert Fitzgodebold; and was suppressed by Cardinal Wolsey. The living is a p. curacy in the diocese of Rochester. Value, £69. Patron, Mrs. Warren. The church stands high; is ancient and tolerable; has a tower; and contains interesting brasses and wooden effigies of Crusadres.
Transcribed by Noel Clark
KELLY'S DIRECTORY OF ESSEX 1933
LITTLE HORKESLEY is a parish, 4 miles north from Colchester, in the Colchester division of the county, Lexden hundred, Lexden and Winstree rural district and petty sessional division, Colchester, Clacton and Halstead joint county court district, Dedham rural deanery, Colchester archdeaconry and Chelmsford diocese. The church of SS. Peter and Paul, erected in the 15th century, is an edifice of stone in the Perpendicular style, consisting of chancel, nave, south aisle, south porch and an embattled western tower containing 5 bells and a clock: a vestry and organ chamber were added in 1878 and the church thoroughly restored at a cost of between £2,000 and £3,000: there are 250 sittings: there are several very ancient monumental effigies in the church, and some ancient brasses, including a brass shield. The register dates from the year 1568, but has been inaccurately kept. The living is a vicarage, net yearly value £320, in the gift of trustees, and held since 1930 by the Rev. Edmund Willis M.A. of Exeter College, Oxford, hon, C.F. who resides at Great Horkesley. Thomas Love, of this parish, gave by will in 1564 the sum of £120 in trust to Thomas Rich, of Lexden, with which he should buy a parcel of land and distribute the rent at Shrovetide amongst the poor of Great and Little Horkesley, Boxted, Langham, Wormingford, Fordham, Dedham, Lexden, West Bergholt, Nayland, Mount Bures and Hedley; the charity for this parish now amounts to about £13 yearly and is distributed among the poor. Here was formerly a priory of Cluniac monks belonging to the monastery of Thetford, said to have been founded in the time of King Stephen, circ. 1150. by Robert Fitz Godebold and Beatrix, his wife, and dedicated to SS. Peter and Paul: the revenues at the Dissolution were £27 7s. 11d. Thomas Frank Page esq. is the principal landowner. The soil is loam; subsoil, clay. The chief crops are wheat, barley, beans and turnips. The area is 1,026 acres; the population in 1931 was 183 in the civil parish and of the ecclesiastical parish in 1921, 200.
Under the provisions of the Divided Parishes Act, 1882, a part of Bergholt Road has been transferred from this parish to Great Horkesley.
Post & Tel. Call Office. Letters through Colchester. The nearest M. O. & T. office is at Great Horkesley