BILLING (GREAT), a parish in the hundred of
SPELHOE, county of NORTHAMPTON, 4 miles (E. N. E.)
from Northampton, containing 334 inhabitants. The
living is a rectory, in the archdeaconry of Northampton,
and diocese of Peterborough, rated in the king's books
at £ 19, and in the patronage of the Principal and Fellows
of Brasenose College, Oxford. The church is dedicated
to St. Andrew. This parish has a communication
with the North sea, through the Northampton canal
and the river Nen. An almshouse was founded by John
Freeman, Esq., in the reign of James I., for one man
and four women. Sir Isaac Wake, a distinguished scholar
and diplomatist in the same reign, was born here,
in 1575.