Holt in 1839
Holt is in the hundred of Holt, 119 miles from London. The parish has an area of 2,950 acres, with a population in 1831 of 1,622, less than one-third agricultural. The town is advantageously situated at the junction of several roads in the midst of a pleasant country. It is irregularly laid out, but the houses are neatly built and the streets paved with flints. The town was nearly destroyed by a great fire in 1708, but it was much improved on being re-built. There are a neat and commodious sessions-house and a church.
There are two dissenting places of worship. There is a well-attended market on Saturday, and there are two yearly fairs. The quarter-sessions for the county are held here twice in the year by adjournment. The living is a rectory, of the clear yearly value of £563, with a glebe-house.
There were in 1833 in the parish one dame-school with 14 children ; an endowed school with 60 boys, founded by Sir John Gresham and placed under the government of the Fishmonger’s Company in London ; seven other day-schools, with 158 children ; one boarding-school with14 children ; and two Sunday-schools, with 150 children. |