FECKENHAM, a parish in the upper division of
the hundred of HALFSHIRE, county of WORCESTER, 7
miles (E. by S.) from Droitwich, containing 2383 inhabitants.
The living is a discharged vicarage, in the archdeaconry
and diocese of Worcester, rated in the king's
books at £9, endowed with £400 private benefaction,
£400 royal bounty, and £1500 parliamentary grant,
and in the patronage of the Rev. Edward Neal. The
church is dedicated to St. John the Baptist. There
is a place of worship for Independents. A free
grammar school was founded by Sir Thomas Cookes,
Bart., and endowed with £ 50 per annum, arising out
of lands in the neighbourhood, a regular attendance at
which for two years renders young men eligible to scholarships
established by the founder in Worcester College,
Oxford; but preference is given to those educated at the
school at Bromsgrove. This place gave name to an
adjoining forest, and has long been noted for the mamtfacture
of needles and fish hooks. There are fairs for
cattle on March 26th and September 30th; a court leet
is held in October, when a constable is chosen. John
de Feckenham, an eminent Roman Catholic divine, and
the last abbot of Westminster, was born here; he held
disputations with Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, but performed
kind offices for many others of the persecuted
protestants in the reign of Mary.