HENLEY-in-ARDEN, a market-town and chapelry
in the parish of WOOTTON-WAVEN, Henley division
of the hundred of BARLICHWAY, county of WARWICK,
10 miles (W. by N.) from Warwick, and 101 (N.W.
by W.) from London, on the road through Oxford
to Birmingham, containing 1249 inhabitants. This
town takes the adjunct, by which it is distinguished
from other places of the same name, from its situation
in the Forest of Arden, a large tract of woodland extending
over part of Warwickshire and the adjoining
counties. A considerable part of it was burnt at the battle
of Evesham, in the reign of Henry III., from which
injury, however, it had recovered in that of Edward I.
Henry VI., in the 27th of his reign, granted to Sir Kalph
Boteler, Knt., lord of the manor, a charter reciting and
confirming previous charters, by which it had view
of frankpledge, a market, and other privileges, that monarch
adding the power to hold courts of pleas of the
crown and common pleas, exemption from tolls, and
from the jurisdiction of the sheriff for the county, with
the right to the chattels of all tenants of the manor
wheresoever condemned, with other grants and privileges,
which have become obsolete.
The town is pleasantly situated near the confluence
of the rivers Arrow and Allen, or Alne, and consists
principally of one spacious street extending for more
than a mile along the turnpike road; the houses are in
general neat and well built, but of ancient appearance,
occasionally interspersed with handsome modern buildings;
the inhabitants are amply supplied with water
from pumps and wells. The only articles of manufacture
are nails, needles, and fish-hooks, which afford occupation
to not more than fifty persons. The market
is on Monday; the fairs are on the Tuesday in Whitsun-
week, a pleasure fair; October 29th, a large fair
for hops; and March 25th, for cattle and sheep. The
market-house is a neat building of stone, supported on
pillars; and near it is a handsome ancient cross, of which
the shaft, of one entire stone, rises from a pedestal and
terminates in a rich canopy at the summit. By charter
of Henry VI., the government is vested in a high and
low bailiff, appointed at the court leet of the lord of
the manor, when constables and other officers are also
chosen: a petty session is held weekly by the county
magistrates.
The living is a perpetual curacy, in the archdeaconry
and diocese of Worcester, endowed with £400 royal
bounty, and £ 1400 parliamentary grant, and in the pa-
tronage of the householders in the parish. The church,
dedicated to St. John the Baptist, is a small but elegant
structure in the later style of English architecture,
with a square embattled tower; the porch at the
west entrance is a highly enriched and beautiful .specimen
of the later period of that style; the old roof, of
ribbed and carved oak, is still preserved in the chancel;
and throughout the whole of the building the traces of
a pure and elegant design are discernible. There is a
place of worship for Baptists. A charity school was
fbunded by the corporation, to whom .George Whateley,
Esq.; in the 28th of Elizabeth, gave a messuage in trust
for that purpose, and it is supported by the appropriation
of part of the charitable funds at their disposal,
arising from various benefactions: there are thirty boys
in the school. A Sunday school, in which from eighty
to one hundred children of both sexes are instructed, is
supported by subscription. About a quarter of a mile
to the east of the town, on the summit of a bold and
lofty eminence, called, from its beautiful situation, Bel
Desert, or Beau Desert, is the site of a castle, which was
erected prior to the reign of Stephen, and demolished
during the war between the houses of York and Lancaster
j the site of the draw-bridge and some other
parts may be traced, and there are faint vestiges of the
ancient moat, but no remains of the building. At the
base of the castle hill, the parish church of Beaudesert, a
small but beautiful edifice,partly in the Norman, and partly
in the early English, style of architecture. About two
miles to the north-west of the town are the Leveridge
hills, where there is a Roman encampment, intrenched
with a double moat and high ramparts of earth; and
about half a mile to the east is Henley Mount, said
to have been thrown up by Cromwell, as an exploratory
station during the parliamentary war.