1890 Kelly’s Directory

EVERSHOLT is a parish situated 2 miles east from Woburn, on the borders of the park, about 4 south from Ridgmount station on the Bedford and Bletchley branch of the North Western railway and 14 south-west from Bedford, in the Southern division of the county, hundred of Manshead, petty sessional division and union of Woburn, county court district of Ampthill, rural deanery of Fleete, archdeaconry of Bedford and diocese of Ely. The parish consists of several clusters of houses called “Ends.” The church of St. John the Baptist is a building of stone in the Early English, Decorated and Perpendicular styles, consisting of chancel, nave of four bays, aisles and a western embattled tower containing 6 bells: the north aisle projects one bay beyond the nave, and opens into the chancel by a Decorated arch, on one side of which is a piscina: there is another in the south aisle and a third in the chancel: it underwent a complete restoration in 1864, under the direction of the late Sir G. G. Scott R.A. at a cost of about £3,000: there are monuments to the Hon. Prances Ongley, eldest daughter of Samuel Henley, first Baron Ongley, of Old Warden (ext. 1877); Mrs. Elizabeth Hyde, sister of the Bishop of St. David’s, and Mrs. Sarah Hodgkinson : there is a representation of a boar’s head carved in stone in the wall of the vestry, the name Eversholt signifying “the hold of the wild boar:” the church will seat 300 persons. The register dates from the year 1628. The living is a rectory, tithe rent-charge £480, gross yearly value £600, including 65 acres of glebe, with residence, in the gift of the Duke of Bedford K.G. and held since 1861 by the Rev. William Samuel Baker M.A. of Clare College, Cambridge. There is a charity estate of 110 acres, known as the Eversholt Parochial Charity, administered by trustees, which produces £245 14s. yearly, applied to the church, to the poor and to the schools, the latter receiving one-third of the total income. There is a reading room managed by a committee of 10 members, the rector being president; also a library at the school for the use of the parish, consisting of about 250 volumes. Gilbert of Eversholt, one of the early rectors of this parish, and also an architect of some considerable eminence, was employed in the restoration of St. Albans Abbey. The Duke of Bedford K.G. is lord of the manor and chief landowner. The soil is loam and gravel; subsoil, clay. The land is chiefly in pasture ; the chief crops are wheat, barley, oats, beans and peas. The area is 2,136 acres; rateable value, £3,240; the population in 1881 was 768.

Post Office.—-Richard Farmer Harris, receiver. Letters arrive through Woburn at 7.15 a.m. ; dispatched at 5.20 p.m. The nearest money order & telegraph office is at Woburn

A School Board of 5 members was formed in October, 1885 ; the Rev. W. S. Baker, chairman & clerk to the board (pro tem.)

Board School (formerly National) (mixed), erected in 1844, for 140 children, & (infants) erected in 1862, for 60 children, now annexed ; average attendance, 80; Benjamin Wild, master