MARKET-STREET, a chapelry comprised within the parishes of CADDINGTON, FLAMSTEAD, and STUDHAM, partly in the hundred of DACORUM, county of HERTFORD, and partly in the hundreds of FLITT and MANSHEAD, county of BEDFORD, 3 miles (S.W.jbyS.) from Luton. The population is returned with the respective parishes. The ancient;name of Merk-gate, or Mark-gate, of which the present is a corruption, appears to have been derived from Merk, a boundary, and Yate, or Gate, this place having formerly been the end of the enclosed country, where it is supposed there was a gate on the high road or Watling-street. On a hill in the vicinity, where is now an ancient mansion, a nunnery of the Benedictine order, dedicated to the Holy Trinity, formerly stood: it was founded about 1145, principally by Geffrey, Abbot of St. Alban's, and at the dissolution its revenue was valued at & 143. 13. 8.: the monastic buildings were converted into a mansion in the time of EdwardVI., which is still called the priory. The village is on the great road from London to Birmingham, and consists of one long-street j the manufacture of hats and bonnets of straw-plat is somewhat considerable. A fair is held here about Michaelmas, but the day depends upon that of Luton fair. The living is a perpetual curacy, in the archdeaconry of Huntingdon, and diocese of Lincoln, endowed with a rent-charge of £20, and with £200 private benefaction, and £600 royal bounty, and in the patronage of Daniel Goodson Adey, Esq., as proprietor of the manor, under the provisions of an act of parliament passed in the 14th of George II. The chapel, which is dedicated to St. John the Baptist, is situated in Cell, or Priory park, and was erected about a century ago, for the accommodation of the three parishes, in lieu of one at the manor-house, which had been burnt down. There are places of worship for Baptists and Wesleyan Methodists. Here is a grammar school: the school-house and close were conveyed to trustees by John Coppin, Esq., January 25th, 1666; the incumbent of the parish is the nominal master.