Biddlesden, Buckinghamshire

Description
Biddlesden or Bittlesden, a village and a parish in the county of Bucks. The village stands on the verge of the county, 4 1/2 miles NE of Brackley station on the L. & N.W.R. It was formerly a market-town, but is now a small secluded place. The parish comprises 3201 acres, and its post town is Brackley, which is the money order and telegraph office. Population of the civil parish, 155; of the ecclesiastical, 124. Biddlesden House is a fine stone mansion standing in a well-wooded deer park of 180 acres. The manor was held some time by William the Conqueror, passed to Robert de Mappershall, and then to Ernald de Bosco; was given by the latter to the Cistercian monks of Gerndon for founding an abbey on it, and went at the dissolution to Thomas, Lord Wriothesley. Considerable remains of the abbey stood about the year 1700, but have all disappeared. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Oxford; gross yearly value, £73. The church is a modern edifice adjoining Biddlesden House.