BEAUDESERT, a parish in the Henley division
of the hundred of BARLICHWAY, county of WARWICK,
\ a mile (E.) from Henley in Arden, containing 209 inhabitants.
The living is a rectory, in the archdeaconry
and diocese of Worcester, rated in the king's books at
£7. 16. 0., and in the patronage of the Crown. The
church, dedicated to St. Nicholas, is partly in the
Norman, and partly in the early English, style of
architecture, with a richly ornamented Norman arch
between the nave and the chancel. A castle was erected
here, soon after the Conquest, by Thurstan de Montfort,
which was dismantled during the war between the
houses of York and Lancaster; the site is still distinguishable.
In the reign of Stephen, the lord of the
manor obtained a grant for a market and a fair. The
Rev. Richard Jago, a poet of some note, was bom here
in 1715, during the incumbency of his father.