SITUATE on the eastern side of the county, is bounded on the east by the counties of Bedford and Huntingdon, on the south by Buckinghamshire, on the west by the hundreds of Wymersley, Hamfordshoe, and Huxloe, and on the north by Navisford hundred. Its shape is narrow and irregular and extends along the border of the county for nearly sixteen miles, covering an area of 30,730 statute acres. It takes its name from the principal town in it. William Peverel, the Conqueror's natural son, possessed this hundred, then called Hecham, at the time of the Domesday survey. It afterwards passed through the Ferrers, Earls of Derby, and the Earls of Lancaster, and came to the possession of the Crown, with which it still continues, as parcel of the duchy of Lancaster. The hundred comprises the borough-town of Higham Ferrers, and thirteen parishes, of which the following table is an enumeration, showing the acreage as collected from the rate-books, together with the rateable value and gross estimated rental, and the number of houses and population of each parish in 1871:
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Bozeat
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Chelveston Cum Caldecot
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Easton Maudit
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Farndish (part of)
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Hargrave
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Higham Ferrers
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Higham Park
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Irchester/Knuston
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Newton Bromshold*
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Raunds
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Ringstead
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Rushden
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Stanwick
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Strixton
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Wollaston
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*Two cottages in this village are in the parish of Yelden, in Bedfordshire
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