NEWPORT-PAGNELL, a market-town and parish
in the hundred of NEWPORT, county of BUCKINGHAM,
15 miles (N.E. byE.) from Buckingham, and 51 (N.W.)
;from London, containing 3103 inhabitants. The dis-
tinguishing addition to its name is derivable from the
family of Paganell, or Pagnell, to. whom the manor
descended from William Fitzansculf, a powerful baron,
who held it at the time of the Conquest. Their castle
had fallen to decay previously to the time when Camden
wrote: it was a place of great strength, but probably
suffered in the great civil war, in the early part of which
Newport was garrisoned by Prince Rupert: this gar-
rison was withdrawn after the first battle of Newbury,
in 1643, when the parliamentary troops, under the Earl
of Essex, entered the town. Sir Samuel Luke, sup-
posed to have been the Hudibras of Butler, was the
governor in 1645. The town, one of the largest in the
.county, is pleasantly situated on a gentle eminence j it
,is well built, particularly the principal street, but badly
paved, and not lighted. Water is supplied from wells,
and, by means of an hydraulic machine, from the small
river Levet, which runs through the town, and falls
into the-Ouse. Coal is brought from Staffordshire by
a branch of the Grand Junction canal. Over the Levet,
at its junction with the Ouse, in 1810, an elegant bridge
of cast-iron, having one arch fifty-eight feet in the span,
was constructed; and, about the same time, a very hand-
some stone bridge was erected over the Ouse; the ex-
pense of both was about £ 12,000. The races, which had
been discontinued for forty years, were revived in 1827,
,and are held regularly in the month of August. The
assizes for the county were occasionally held here, from
the reign of .Henry III..to that of Henry VI.: the petty
sessions for the three hundreds of Newport are still
held here; and a manorial court is held once in two
years, at which constables are appointed. The manu-
-facture of bone-lace here and in the neighbourhood was
formerly carried on to a very considerable extent, the
market for its sale being on Wednesday; but of late
years the -trade has very much declined. There are
a few wool-sorters; and a paper manufactory affords
employment to a considerable number of individuals.
A grant of a market and a fair was made, or confirmed,
to Roger de Somery, in 1270, and a renewal of the
charter for  the market, which is held on Saturday, was
obtained by John de Botetort, in 1333. Six fairs are
now held, mz., February 22nd, April 22nd, June 22nd,
August 29th, October 22nd, and December 22nd.
The living is a discharged vicarage, in -the. archdeaconry
of Buckingham, and diocese of Lincoln, rated in
-the king's books at £10, endowed with £200 private
benefaction, and £200 royal bounty, and in the patronage
of the Crown. The church, dedicated to St. Peter
and St. Paul, is an ancient and spacious edifice, with a
square tower, standing on an eminence which affords
a fine view of the surrounding country. The sum of
£6000 has been recently expended in repairing it;
and two hundred new sittings have been added, one
hundred of which are free, the Incorporated Society fo?
the enlargement of churches and chapels having contributed
£40 towards defraying the expense. In 1619,
in the north aisle of this church, the body of a man was
disinterred, whose scull and other hollow bones had been
filled with lead: that taken from the scull is preserved
in the library of St. John's College, Cambridge. In the
churchyard is a fine epitaph, written by Cowper, on
Thomas Abbott Hamilton, who died in 1788. There are
places ,of worship for Baptists, Independents, and Wesleyan
Methodists. Here is a school for twenty girls,
founded and endowed with £10 per annum, from a bequest
by Dr. Lewis Atterbury, brother of the celebrated
Bishop of Rochester. A Lancasterian school, supported
by voluntary contributions, was built in 1824; and a
National school, supported in a similar manner, was
erected two years afterwards. In 1280, John de Somery
founded an hospital, dedicated to St. John the Baptist
and St. John the Evangelist, which was refounded by
Anne of Denmark, queen of James I., and, in consequence,
called Queen's hospital; the vicar of the parish
is always the master-: its revenue is about £70 a year,
which Is divided amongst three poor men and three poor
women, for whose maintenance it was endowed. Two
other hospitals, called St. Margaret's and the New hospital,
were founded so early as 1240, but they have fallen
to decay. Dr. Lewis Atterbury, brother of the Bishop of
Rochester, gave £ 10 a year for a schoolmistress to in-
, struct twenty girls. Mr. John Revis, citizen and draper
of London, founded and endowed an almshouse, in 1763,
for four poor men and three women, each of whom now
receives six shillings a week. A close in North Crawley
was given, by a person unknown, to the widow of any
vicar of this parish; when there is no widow, the
rental is applied to the apprenticing of poor children.
Fulk Paganell, in the reign of William Rufus,
founded, a convent of Cluniac monks at Teckford, adjoining
this town, which was a cell to the abbey of
Marmontier in Normandy, and the monastery and
lands, valued at £ 126. 17, were given, in the 17th of
Henry VIII., to Cardinal Wolsey.