Atlas of Northamptonshire by Partida Tracey; Hall David; Foard Glenn

Author:Partida, Tracey; Hall, David; Foard, Glenn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SOCIAL SCIENCE / Archaeology
ISBN: 1685850
Publisher: Oxbow Books
Published: 2013-01-07T16:00:00+00:00

5 RURAL SETTLEMENT

Glenn Foard

This study of rural settlement in medieval and early-modern Northamptonshire is intended to complement and extend that published in 2009 for Rockingham Forest, where the background to and methodology for our analysis is described. In the present chapter we have considered all 636 medieval settlements in the county, including ends and isolated sites, but the primary focus is on the 465 villages and hamlets. Using GIS we have compared the distribution of settlement with the underlying physical geography and with aspects of the county’s medieval and early-modern landscape presented in this and the Rockingham atlas. At a more detailed level we have also compared the plan forms of each village with these same factors, though plans of only a few examples can be presented here to illustrate that analysis. The present chapter also brings together more tenuous evidence, to develop speculative hypotheses for village origins and development which could be tested by further documentary and archaeological research.

The settlement plans analysed here derive from the earliest or most useful historic mapping, enhanced by examination of further maps and other documentary sources and, where relevant, by earthwork, crop and soilmark evidence.1 The extent of ancient enclosures is usually taken from historic maps but occasionally comes from reconstruction of the enclosure awards.2 Together with furlong evidence from archaeological and historic map sources, these data have also been used to define the likely maximum extent of medieval settlements, though for most settlements great uncertainty remains over this.

Various difficulties were encountered in the study. Problems arose from the variable level of detail on historic maps and, because it was a countywide survey, the resolution at which the open field mapping was undertaken. Thus, for example, definition of the extent of greens on the periphery of villages has usually been possible only where pre-enclosure or draft enclosure maps survive (Figure 86). Other difficulties arose because so many of the sources were from the 18th and especially 19th century. Indeed, for 17% of sites (77 of 465 villages and hamlets) the earliest usable mapping was the first edition 6 inch Ordnance Survey of the 1880s. By this time key elements of medieval plan form will often have been lost or obscured through decay of tenement rows, as a result of desertion, engrossing, accretion and subdivision.

The earlier the available mapping the greater is the chance of recovering a plan form which more closely reflects the medieval situation. Where decline, re-planning or growth has confused the earlier plan of a village, the survival of early maps has sometimes enabled much of the original pattern to be recovered. In other cases major plan form change predates even the earliest of maps. For example, at Holdenby there are maps from the late 16th century which show elements of the village which were lost in later re-planning, yet the first stage of removal of tenements, for the laying out of the great house and its gardens, predates even these maps (Figures 38–40).3 Earthwork, soil or cropmark data have also occasionally enabled recovery of plan forms where major changes pre-date the earliest map.

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