CROXTON-KEYRIAL, a parish in the hundred of
FRAMLAND, county of LEICESTER, 7 miles (S.E.) from
Grantham, containing, with Beskaby, 527 inhabitants.
The living is a discharged vicarage, in the archdeaconry
of Leicester, and diocese of Lincoln, rated in the king's
books at £7. 14. 7., and in the patronage of the Duke
of Rutland. The church, dedicated to St. John, is in
the later style of English architecture^ with a tower
rising from the centre. William Smith, in 1711, bequeathed
land producing about £5 per annum for the
endowment of a free school. Croxton abbey, dedicated
to St. John the Evangelist, was founded in 1162, by
William Porcarius de Linus, for Premonstratensian
canons, whose revenue, at the dissolution, was .valued
at £458. 19. 11.: one of the abbots was physician to
King John, whose bowels were interred in the church.