Conservation Area: Cranford conservation area (DNN12274)

Cranford, pop.414 (2001), is the largest of the four villages in this study and is the only one not part of the Boughton Estate. It is of special interest as a village still retaining strong evidence of its medieval origins as twin parishes, the manorial estate of St Andrews’s – now Cranford Hall – still flourishing from the 18th Century and owning vast tracts of land around both parishes. Not only is the medieval plan of the village still very clear, but Cranford is surrounded by traces of a now-vanished ironstone extraction industry and the village is centre for several very traditional rural pursuits. Unlike the other three villages, it has a relatively high proportion of council-owned or built houses and of recent privately-owned houses, mostly displaying vernacular materials. Cranford is a spacious inward-looking village with broad tracts of meadow or pasture land in the bowl through which flows the Alledge brook. Boundaries north and south of the village are clearly defined by the relatively recently planted ‘Kingston’s Spinney’ north of Cranford Hall Livery’s exercising paddocks and by the less welcome A14 trunk road supplanting the old Kettering to Cambridge railway line on the south side. East and west boundaries are less visibly defined, but the village is bound by old ironstone workings on both sides. The topography is such that each former parish regards the other – across the brook – still with an underlying rivalry that can make decisions on provision of amenities difficult. On the other hand, both parts overlook an idyllic scene of sheep grazing in parkland presided over by Cranford Hall. The mix of building types, mostly residential, is a microcosm of Middle England from Cranford Hall and its establishment (St. Andrew’s) to the Manor (St John’s) and other distinguished detached residences, 17th Century and later terraces mostly thatched, groups of council-built houses and small clusters of modern stone-faced dwellings Cranford lies against one of the principal radial routes running eastwards, some 3 miles from Kettering. The A604 road which runs through the village has largely been superseded by the A14 dual carriageway trunk road which also ‘swallowed’ most of the route of the former single railway line that ran between Kettering and Cambridge from 1866 to 1963 with a station at Cranford. This was one of the few stations on the line close to the village it served. The Red Lion was probably a coaching stage-post before the railway arrived. The main features of the village setting derive from the large tracts of parkland, or former parkland, around Cranford Hall, and earthworks – partly tree covered – left over from ironstone mining and open-cast quarrying. The main areas of parkland, those north of the Hall now partly used as livery paddocks, are still run by the Cranford Hall Estate which has a continuing programme of tree planting. It is interesting that, by comparison with the Enclosure map (NRO Map 4446), some land to the north was un-enclosed in the 19th Century during Cranford Hall’s enlargement of its landscaped parkland. Extensive earthworks survive, partly tree-covered, of opencast ironstone quarries north-east of the village and of ironstone mining to the west. The course of the former Midland Railway Line is a significant landscape feature bordering the south side of the village, a tree-lined embankment to the west changing to a deep cutting where crossed by the A604 at the southeast corner of the conservation area.

Record last edited

Jul 20 2012 9:49AM