RAUNDS is a parish and large village, with a station on the Kettering and Cambridge section of the Midland railway, about 1½ miles north-east from the village, 4½ miles south from Thrapston, 4 north-east from Higham Ferrers, and 69 from London, in the Northern division of the county, hundred of Higham Ferrers, petty sessional division, union and county court district of Thrapston, rural deanery of Higham Ferrers (second portion), archdeaconry of Oakham, and diocese of Peterborough.  The church of St. Peter is a noble edifice of stone, in the Early English style, with Decorated and Perpendicular insertions, consisting of chancel, clerestoried nave, aisles, south chantry, south porch and a western tower, with broach spire, containing a clock and 6 bells, all originally cast in 1732, the 5^th and tenor being recast in 1878; the spire, 186 feet in height, having been struck by lightning, 31 July, 1826, and severely injured, was taken down and rebuilt at a cost of £1,731, raised by subscription: the lower stage of the tower is groined and has a screen: the communion table of carved oak was the gift of Gilbert Negouse, buried here Aug. 3^rd, 1630: the font is a curious circular example, on a moulded pedestal, and has a carved ram’s head projecting from one side: there is a monument with brass and arms to William Gage esq. Of Magilligem, county Derry, Ireland, ob. 1632, who bequeathed £10 annually for 40 years to the poor of this parish; at the east end of the south aisle, on a large stone, near the entrance to the chapel, are effigies of a man and woman in brass with an invocatory inscription commemorating John Tawyer, ob. 25^th Jan. 1370, and Margaret, his wife, and below are figures of four daughters and a shield of arms: on an adjoining stone is the effigy of a woman, with those of four sons and five daughters, and a shield of the same arms: there is also a panelled altar-tomb, inscribed to John Wales, vicar, ob. 1596: in the chancel is a coffin slab of the 13^th century ornamented with a rich floriated cross, and supposed to be the tombstone of the founder of the church: the church was restored, at a cost of upwards of £4,000, from designs by the late Sir G. Gilbert Scott R.A. and reopened in June, 1874: in 1893 a new organ was presented by Mr. J. King Smith, at a cost of £1,200: in the churchyard is the base of an ancient cross.  The register dates from the year 1581.  The living is a vicarage, gross yearly value from 205 acres of glebe £230, net yearly value £180, with residence, in the gift of the Bishop of Peterborough, M.A. of Durham University.  The first authenticated incumbent was John de Twyford in 1254.  There is a Baptist chapel and a Wesleyan chapel with Sunday and day schools, built in 1874, at a cost of nearly £3,000; the chapel will hold 800 people, and has a large burial ground attached.  The Primitive Methodist chapel was erected in 1870.  The Temperance Hall, built in 1859, will hold 350 persons.  The curfew is rung here at 8 p.m. daily from Michaelmas to Lady Day (Sundays excepted), and this place may be regarded as the head quarters of the “Raunds, Wellingborough and District Society of Church Bell Ringers.”  Raunds is a place of considerable importance for the manufacture of boots and shoes, which is extensively carried on by Messrs. W. Nichols and Son, J. King Smith, Owen Smith and John Horrell.  At Raunds was born John Grimbald, who built Trinity College library and part of Clare College, Cambridge.  Mrs. Catherine Pepys, of Cottenham, in Cambridgeshire (also born here) and whose maiden name was Grimbald, left by will £100, which has been laid out in land, and the proceeds are devoted to the teaching of 12 poor children of the parish.  The other charities, amounting to about £27 yearly, are chiefly derived from 18 acres of land left by John Blaise, of Raunds, and six cottages belonging to Nicholl’s charity, and are distributed in money on St. Thomas’ day, to the poor of the parish.  The Grange is the residence of Mrs. T. Nichols.  H.M. the Queen and Sir James Hay Langham bart. M.A. of Cottesbrooke Park, are lady and lord of the manor.  Sir J. H. Langham bart. Messrs. Thomas Nichols, J. K. Nichols, S. Brown, T. C. Reeves, Stopford Sackville, Mrs. Sharman, and the vicar, are the principal landowners, and there are some smaller proprietors.  The soil is chiefly clay, with some light scaly land; subsoil, clay; and in the neighbourhood of the village, white rock and ironstone.  The  chief crops are wheat, barley, seeds and roots.  The area is 4,287 acres; rateable value, £9,653; the population in 1891 was 3,055.

Parish Clerk, John Wilmott.

POST, M. O. & T. O., S. B. & Annuity & Insurance Office – George Walker, postmaster.  Letters arrive from Thrapston at 7.5 a.m. & 1.35 p.m.; dispatched at 10.10 a.m. & 5 & 6.50 p.m.  No delivery or dispatch on Sundays.  WALL LETTER BOX, cleared at 10.15 a.m. & 5 p.m.

SCHOOLS:-

National (mixed), built, with master’s residence, in 1859, from designs by the late Mr. Street & enlarged in 1882, at a cost of £110, for 200 children; average attendance, 180; & supported in part by an endowment from Mrs. Pepys’s charity of £10 yearly, derived from land; Jesse Shelmerdine, master.

Infants’, built in 1869 & enlarged in 1874, at a cost of £180, for 160 children; average attendance, 120; Mrs. Bessie Shelmerdine, mistress.

Wesleyan Day (mixed), built, with master’s residence, in 1860, for 269 children; average attendance, 235; & supported in part by an endowment of £7 12s. Yearly, derived from a bequest of £250 from the late William Nichols esq. Of Raunds, left in 1872; George Lee, master; Miss Elizabeth Nichols, infants’ mistress.

Railway Station, William Townsend, station master.

CARRIER TO :-

THRAPSTON – Owen Nunley, Tues. & Sat.

WELLINGBOROUGH – Owen Nunley, Mon., Wed., & Friday.