But an abbot in those days was quite equal to meeting a hereditary sheriff on his own ground.

Abbot William de Andeville descended on the castle, took it, razed it to the ground, and consecrated the site as a cemetery; no vestige of either castle or cemetery now remains.

Old Bengeworth is hardly more than one long street, and there is little now to claim our attention.

On the right side of the street, set back behind some iron railings, is a school founded early in the eighteenth century by John Deacle, a man of humble origin and a native of Bengeworth, who, moving to London became a wealthy woollen draper with a shop in Saint Paul's churchyard, and finally an Alderman of the City.

In the new church is his tomb with an elaborate effigy in the costume of the period.