P89/25/15/1

Page relating to Ravensden from 'Further Report of the Commissioners for Inquiring Concerning Charities.

30 June 1821

From: 1821 To: 1821

The Town and Poor Estate is then said to consist of five cottages and four acres of land in two fields contiguous to each other within the parish. Of this: 2a 3r 34p was awarded in three allotments on the inclosure of the parish in lieu of other land that had been conveyed to the trustees in 1631. The remainder of the land with a cottage was a purchase made by the parish in 1633 with £40 which was accepted in lieu of a rent charge of 40s a year devised by Agnes Martin in 1565. A trust indenture of lease and release dated 17th and 18th March 1816 conveyed to the Duke of Bedford, the Marquis of Tavistock, the Rev Philip Hunt, then vicar of Ravensden, and six others in trust. The deed mentions only one cottage of the other four cottages two were lately built but it was not clear how the other two had been aquired but they are ancient buildings and have been long held with the other property by the trustees. All the trustees were then still living. Land let to John Grant at a rent of £8. Rents received by the vicar were applied: - 40s a year in bread on account of the rent charge left by Agnes Martin distrubted once a year at the church on Sunday after St Thomas's day, among the poor of the parish, in shilling and sixpenny loaves, according to the size of the their families. - 30 to 40s a year paid towards the support of a Sunday school established in Ravensden. - to discharge the debt of £120 contracted in building the two new cottages, of which debt £30 only has been paid off. After the debt has been discharged the surplus rent is meant to be applied in providing warm clothing for the poor during the winter season. The cottages are occupied by poor persons, who are put in by the parish officers, with the concurrence of the trustees. The three old cottages have always been occupied rent free, but it is intended to require a small acknowledgment from the occupiers of those newly erected, as a recognition of their having been built at the common charge of the trust estate.

item

Charity Commission,
Martin, Agnes,
Grant, John

Ravensden charities, RAVENSDEN, Charity Commissioners, Sunday Schools