1898 Introduction
Melchbourne is a village and parish, about 4½ miles north from Sharnbrook station on the main line of the Midland railway, 6 south-east from Higham Ferrers, 6 south-west from Kimbolton, and 12 north from Bedford, in the Northern division of the county, hundred of Stodden, Sharnbrook petty sessional division, county court district and union of Bedford, rural deanery of Riseley, archdeaconry of Bedford and diocese of Ely. The church of St. Mary Magdalene, re-erected (with the exception of part of the tower) in 1779, on the site of an earlier Gothic church, is an edifice in the Classic style, consisting of chancel, nave, aisles, north porch and an embattled western tower containing 4 bells, rehung in 1891: the organ was presented by the late Dowager Lady St. John: there are two monuments to Col. the Hon. George St. John, Lavinia (Wolstenholme), his wife and four children, who were all drowned on their passage from Bombay, in 1802; and to Henry Beauchamp, baron St. John of Bletsoe, 1805; and a brass to Robert Paveley, dated 1377, also a brass to the late Lord St. John, d. 2 Nov. 1887, and to Ellen Georgiana (Senior), his wife, d. 1890. The pulpit is of fine polished mahogany: there are sittings for 400 persons. The register dates from the year 1706. The living is a vicarage, gross yearly value £150, with 27 acres of glebe, and residence, in the gift of Lord St. John, and held since 1898 by the Rev. Frederick Croxall Boultbee B.A. of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. This place had formerly a market, on Fridays and a fair at the festival of St. Mary Magdalene, granted in the year 1264 to the Knights Hospitallers. In a field, adjoining the park on the north, are the remain of an ancient preceptory of the Knights Hospitallers, to whom the manor and church were given, temp. Henry I by Alice de Claremont, Countess of Pembroke, and confirmed to them on the refounding of the Order, 4 & 5 Philip & Mary (1557-8); in 3 Edward VI (1549) these were granted to John, Earl of Bedford, but were given by Queen Elizabeth to Francis, second Earl of Bedford who married Margaret, daughter of Sir John St. John of Bletsoe. Leland, who was there in 1538, speaks of the building as an ancient structure. Melchboume Hall, the seat of Lord St. John D.L., J.P. was built by Sir William Weston, the last of the priors of the Knights Hospitallers: the front has since been modernized; there are beautiful gardens with conservatories and hothouses, surrounded by about 400 acres of park and woods, with fine game preserves and two lakes: the mansion underwent extensive restoration in 1877. Lord St. John is lord of the manor and sole landowner. The soil is strong clay; subsoil, clay. The chief crops are wheat, beans and peas. The area is 2,630 acres of land and 8 of water; rateable value, £2,215; the population in 1891 was 165.

Parish Clerk, George Reynolds.

Post, Telegraph & Express Delivery Office.—John P. Richards, sub-postmaster. Letters received through Sharnbrook S.O. at 8.30 a.m.; dispatched at 5.45 p.m. Riseley is the nearest money order office,2½ miles distant

National School (mixed), built by Lord St. John, it will hold 50 children; average attendance, 27; John P. Richards, master. The school stands on Lord St. John's property.