A History of the County of Northampton: Volume 4. Originally published by Victoria County History, London, 1937.
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The parish of Quinton covers an area of 1,225 acres. The soil varies from strong clay to yellow marl, and in some parts it is of a light gravelly nature; the subsoil is mainly rock. The chief crops produced are wheat and barley, a fair proportion of the parish being devoted to pasture. In 1931 the population was 92.
In 1086 the Countess Judith held the manor of Yardley Hastings to which pertained 1 hide and 3 virgates of land in QUINTON. (fn. 1) The overlordship of this estate descended with Yardley Hastings (q.v.). At the time of the Northamptonshire Survey (12th cent.) William Peverel held 4 small virgates in Quinton (fn. 2) which are not traceable in the Domesday survey. The overlordship of this land passed with the honor of Peverel to the house of Lancaster, and the fee itself was held by the family of Preston of Preston Deanery (q.v.) until 1428, when Wynmer de Preston, the last of his line, was holding it. (fn. 3)
Under the Countess Judith ½ hide and 3 virgates in Quinton were held by Winemar the Fleming, (fn. 4) the other ½ hide being held by two socmen. (fn. 5) At the time of the Northamptonshire Survey David and Philip held 1¾ hides in Quinton of the honor of Huntingdon, while Gilbert held 4 small virgates of the honor of Peverel. (fn. 6) Walter de Preston, descendant of Winemar, held the vill of Quinton in 1216 when he forfeited it on joining the rebel barons. (fn. 7) He returned to his allegiance the next year, however, his lands being restored to him. (fn. 8) His son Gilbert de Preston held 2 fees in Quinton and elsewhere of the honor of Huntingdon. (fn. 9) This appears as one knight's fee in Quinton held by Laurence de Preston in 1284 (fn. 10) of John de Hastings, who had also 2 carucates in Quinton held by Edmund de Stoginges and of him by Humphrey de Hayttinge. (fn. 11) As Quinton in this return is miswritten 'Suenton' it is possible that 'Hayttinge' is a blunder for Hastang and that Humphrey was the father of Philip de Hastang (fn. 12) who held of John de Hastings a messuage and 150 acres in Quinton, which is described in 1316 as a manor, (fn. 13) in free socage by service of a ½d. rent yearly. On Philip's death in 1317 his wife Alice inherited the land for her life, with remainder to her daughter Beatrice who came of age in 1329. (fn. 14) She married Thomas son of John de Longueville and in 1349 George Longueville, whose wife was daughter of Sir Laurence de Preston, and Thomas Preston held land in Quinton of the Earl of Pembroke. (fn. 15) Thomas Preston, son of Laurence, was still in possession of the land in Quinton in 1376, (fn. 16) but by 1428 it had passed to John Longueville and Walter Bald. (fn. 17) These estates came into the possession of John Dyve, who had married Elizabeth sister and heir of John Longueville, (fn. 18) and who levied a fine on BALD'S MANOR in Quinton in 1464. (fn. 19)
The Philip who occurs in the Northamptonshire Survey was probably father of John son of Philip de Quenton who in 1199 exchanged with Walter de Quenton land in Cotes for other land in Quinton. (fn. 20) Walter de Quenton died seised of the vill, held of Walter de Preston, in 1216. The wardship of his heir Philip was assigned to Philip de St. Helen to whom the king had granted all the lands forfeited by Walter de Preston on his rebellion. (fn. 21) The family of Quenton continued to hold land in the parish of the Preston family, Philip de Quenton holding a knight's fee there in 1284 of John Fauveyl who held of Laurence de Preston. (fn. 22) Philip de Quenton, probably his son, was one of the two chief tenants in Quinton in 1316, (fn. 23) and a Sir William conveyed the reversion of the manor, after his death and that of his wife Isabel, to Edmund fitz John and Richard de Leicester in 1369. (fn. 24) He died in 1375, his wife surviving him, (fn. 25) but on her death the manor passed to Sir William's heir Laurence Dyve, the son of his sister Margaret, (fn. 26) in spite of the fine of 1369. His grandson John Dyve married Elizabeth daughter of Sir George Longueville (fn. 27) and had also possession of Bald's Manor in 1464, and for the next two hundred years the Dyves were the chief landowners in Quinton.
Sir John Dyve the grandson of John died in September 1536 having settled the manor of Quinton on his younger son John in tail male. (fn. 28) He died without heirs on 4 October 1545 and Quinton passed to Lewis Dyve the son and heir of his elder brother William who had predeceased him. (fn. 29) Sir Lewis died in 1592 having settled Quinton on his son John soon after his marriage with Douglas daughter of Sir Anthony Denny. (fn. 30) John Dyve was about 50 years old in 1592 and died in December 1607 holding the manor of William, Lord Compton, as of his manor of Yardley Hastings in freesocage. (fn. 31) His son and heir Lewis, who was a minor at the time of his father's death, sold the manor to William Lane in 1641. (fn. 32) On his death in 1649 the manor was sold in accordance with the provisions of his will, being purchased by John Langham of London, merchant. (fn. 33) From the Langham family it passed to George, Earl of Halifax, the owner in 1721. (fn. 34) It remained with the Montagues until about 1787, (fn. 35) but by the early years of the 19th century it had come into the possession of Robert Henry Gunning, (fn. 36) and has been held since by that family, Sir Charles Vere Gunning, bart., being the present lord of the manor.
The church of ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST consists of chancel, 19 ft. 9 in. by 15 ft. 3 in.; clerestoried nave, 32 ft. 4 in. by 13 ft. 6 in.; south aisle, 8 ft. 3 in. wide; south porch, and west tower, 11 ft. by 10 ft. 8 in., all these measurements being internal. The width across nave and aisle is 24 ft. There was formerly a transeptal chapel on the north side, the roof-line of which remains at the east end of the nave wall outside. (fn. 37)
The greater part of the church as it now exists belongs to the 13th century, but it has developed from a late-12th-century building which had an aisleless nave the same size as the present, and of this earlier structure the south-west angle and the west window, now opening into the lower stage of the tower, still remain; this window is a tall lancet, the wide internal splay of which is taken round the head in semicircular form. Some time in the 13th century a south aisle and tower were added and the chancel probably rebuilt, and in the 15th century the tower was heightened by the addition of a new bell-chamber stage, the clerestory erected, and new windows inserted in the aisle. In the 18th century the chancel and porch were remodelled in their present form.
The roofs of the chancel and nave are slated, the aisle leaded, and there are straight parapets throughout. The walls of the chancel and of the lower part of the tower are plastered internally, but elsewhere the plaster has been removed. There are flat plaster ceilings to the chancel and nave. The aisle roof is open.
The western part of the chancel to a distance of 7 ft. 6 in. apparently retains its original walling, but beyond this, where it contracts in width, is of 18thcentury date. It has a plain flat-arched east window and similar windows north and south. The angles are rounded. The older walling, in which there are no windows, was refaced at this time and the whole of the interior refashioned in the style of the day. No ancient features remain.
The pointed 13th-century chancel arch is of two wide chamfered orders with hood-mould, the inner order springing from half-octagonal responds with moulded capitals and bases, the outer from moulded imposts. The upper edge of the abacus of the capital is left square, but the double roll of the base moulding points to the latter half of the century, though it does not occur elsewhere in the building.
The nave arcade is of three bays with pointed arches of two chamfered orders springing from circular pillars with moulded capitals and bases and from keel-shaped responds. The base mouldings are on a chamfered plinth, with a hollow between the rolls; the plinth of the west respond is square on plan. (fn. 38) Near the east end of the north wall of the nave is the blocked arch to the destroyed transept, and beyond it, well above the spring of the chancel arch, a square-headed rood-loft doorway, now blocked, the stairs to which may have led from the transept. The pointed north doorway, which is of a single chamfered order, is walled up. A small trefoilheaded window, now blocked, and seen only from the outside at the east end of the north wall, was probably moved to its present position after the demolition of the transept. (fn. 39)
The aisle is without buttresses or string-course, and the south doorway, as well as that of the porch, appears to be part of the 18th-century remodelling. The fourcentred 15th-century windows are of three cinquefoiled lights, two in the south wall and one at the east end, the west wall being blank. There is a piscina with arched cinquefoiled head and circular bowl in the usual position, and a bracket on the south side of the east window. At the north-east corner is the opening of a former squint.
The clerestory walls rise high above the chancel, the line of whose former roof remains at the east end. There are three four-centred windows of two trefoiled lights on the south side and two on the north, to the west of the former transept. The porch was refashioned after the manner of the chancel, being extended outward and contracted in width. Over the pointed outer doorway, cut in the parapet, is the word 'Populo', and in a similar position at the east end of the chancel 'Deo'.
The original 13th-century tower is of three stages, above which, without the intervention of a string, is the later bell-chamber stage with battlemented parapet. The windows of the original bell-chamber, which are of two uncusped pointed lights under a containing arch with hood-mould, remain on all four sides; they have square jambs and mullions and solid spandrels. Below, the walls are blank. There are pairs of buttresses at the western angles, those facing north and south of a single stage, the others larger and of two stages. The windows of the upper 15th-century stage are four-centred and of two cinquefoiled lights. The tower opens to the nave by a pointed arch of two chamfered orders, the inner order dying into the wall and the outer continuous. Above the arch is the widely splayed window already referred to. The tower has a pyramidal slated roof with vane. There is no vice.
On the north wall of the nave are recently executed tablets in memory of George Battisson (d. 1700), Elizabeth Battisson (d. 1725), and John Battisson (d. 1737), (fn. 42) and to two men of the parish who fell in the war of 1914–18.
There are two bells in the tower, the first by Matthew Bagley 1682, and the second by Thomas Russell of Wootton, Bedfordshire, 1719. (fn. 43)
The plate consists of a silver-plated cup and paten (the cup of modern medieval design), and a plated flagon inscribed 'Hawley Church'. (fn. 44)
About the end of the 11th century Simon, Earl of Northampton, and Maud his wife gave the advowson of the church of Quinton and the tithe to the priory of St. Andrew, Northampton. (fn. 45) An annual pension of 6s. 8d. which the priory claimed from the incumbent at the beginning of the 13th century (fn. 46) was still being paid in 1535. (fn. 47) On the dissolution of the priory the advowson fell to the Crown, and is now in the gift of the Lord Chancellor.