WIGSTON (MAGNA), a parish in the hundred of
GUTHLAXTON, county of LEICESTER, 3 miles (S.S.E.)
from Leicester, containing 2089 inhabitants. The living
is-a discharged vicarage, in the archdeaconry of Leicester,
and diocese of Lincoln, rated in the king's booke
at £9. 8. 9-, endowed with £400 private benefaction,
and £400 royal bounty, and in the alternate patronage
of the Master and Wardens of the Haberdashers' Company,
and the Governors of Christ's Hospital, London.
The church is dedicated to All Saints. There is a place
of worship for Independents. This place was formerly
called Wigston Two Steeples, from its having two
churches; one of these, now in a very dilapidated
state, is used as a school-room, where poor children
are taught to read and write at the expense of the
parishioners. The Leicester canal runs through the
parish. The village is pleasantly situated on the high
road between Welford and Leicester, and is chiefly inhabited
by' persons employed in the manufacture of
stockings. Here are a lunatic asylum, and an hospital,
or almshouse, for six poor widows and as many
widowers; the latter was endowed by a Miss Clarke.
At a place called the Gaol Close, during the civil war
in the reign of Charles I., a temporary prison was
erected, to which the prisoners were removed from
the county gaol at Leicester; the royal army lay near
this place some days.