WELDON (GREAT), a parish (formerly a market
town) in the hundred of COREY, county of NORTHAMPTON,
4 miles (E. S.E.) from Rockingham, containing,
with the hamlet of Little Weldon, 819 inhabitants.
The. living is a rectory, in the archdeaconry of Northampton,
and diocese of Peterborough, rated in the king's
books at & 13. 6. 8. D. F. Hatton, Esq. was patron
in 1819. The church is dedicated to St. Mary. There
is a place of worship for Independents. The market
was on Wednesday; and there were four fairs, three
of which are still held, viz., on the first Thursdays
in February, May, and November, but the fourth
is disused. The market-house, erected at the expense
of Lord Viscount Hatton, over which were the
sessions-chambers, supported by pillars of the Tuscan
order, was pulled down about ten years ago. The
houses are built of rag-stone from extensive quarries
in the neighbourhood. In an enclosure called Chapelfield,
the pavements of a Roman villa, forming a double
square, measuring one hundred feet by fifty, with the
foundations of a stone wall, and a great number of
coins of the Lower Empire, besides some of Constantino,
Constans, Magnentius, and Constantino, jun., were
discovered, in 1738; higher up the hill are the remains
of an ancient town.