MANCETTER, a parish in the Atherstone division
of the hundred of HEMLINGFORD, county of WARWICK,
Ij mile (S. E.) from Atherstone, comprising the
market-town of Atherstone, and the hamlets of Hartshill
and Oldbury, and containing 4482 inhabitants. The
living is a vicarage, in the archdeaconry of Coventry,
and diocese of Lichfield and Coventry, rated in the
king's books at £ 10. 13. 4., and in the patronage of the
Rev. Benjamin Richings. The church, dedicated to St.
Peter, occupies an eminence supposed to have been the
site of a camp, being deeply intrenched. Near it was
the Roman station called, by Antoninus, Manduessuedum,
of an oblong form, with large ramparts enclosing an
area of about seven acres, intersected by the Roman
Watling-street; the north-western side, called Castle
banks, being in Warwickshire, and the south-eastern,
called Oldfield banks, in Leicestershire. Oval flint axes,
or celts, Roman bricks, coins of gold, silver, and brass,
with various other relics of antiquity, have been found
here. The river Anker, and the Coventry canal, run
through the parish. Here are stone quarries, said to
be the most extensive in the kingdom; also several
very productive mines of manganese, of superior quality.
In the village of Mancetter is an hospital, endowed with
a bequest of £2000 from James Gramer, in 1724, for
six poor men, each of whom receives six shillings a
week: there are also a free grammar and two other
endowed schools in the parish.