Scheduled Monument: Winwick medieval settlement (1418336)

Summary of Monument Abandoned areas of the medieval village of Winwick, first documented in Domesday Book of 1086, although archaeological features dating to the late Saxon period suggest earlier origins. Reasons for Designation The medieval village site at Winwick which is first mentioned in Domesday, is scheduled for the following principal reasons: * Survival: for the exceptional earthworks and buried deposits depicting the form and plan of the settlement and its associated agricultural practices; * Potential: for the stratified archaeological deposits which retain considerable potential to increase our understanding of the physical characteristics of the buildings and settlement. Buried artefacts will also have the potential to increase our knowledge and understanding of the social and economic functioning of the settlement within the wider medieval landscape; * Documentation: for the high level of historical and archaeological documentation pertaining to the settlement’s evolution; * Group value: for its close proximity to a number of listed buildings but particularly to the C13 Church of St. Michael; * Diversity: for the range and complexity of features such as building platforms, crofts, trackways, and the moated platform which, taken as a whole, provide a clear plan of the settlement and retain significant stratified deposits which serve to provide details of the continuity and change in the evolution of the settlement. History The village, comprising a small group of houses (known as tofts which may include house platforms surviving as earthworks), gardens (crofts or closes which are typically defined by banks and ditches), yards, streets, paddocks, often with a green, a manor and a church, and with a community devoted primarily to agriculture, was a significant component of the rural landscape in most areas of medieval England, much as it is today. The Introduction to Heritage Assets on Medieval Settlements (English Heritage, May 2011) explains that most villages were established in the C9 and C10, but modified following the Norman invasion to have planned layouts comprising tofts and crofts running back from a main road, often linked with a back lane around the rear of the crofts, and typically having a church and manor house in larger compartments at the end of the village. In recognising the great regional diversity of medieval rural settlements in England, Roberts and Wrathmell (2003) divided the country into three broad Provinces on the basis of each area's distinctive mixture of nucleated and dispersed settlements; these were further divided into sub-Provinces. The Northamptonshire settlements lie in the East Midlands sub-Province of the Central Province, an area characterised in the medieval period by large numbers of nucleated settlements. The southern part of the sub-Province has greater variety of settlement, with dispersed farmsteads and hamlets intermixed with the villages. Whilst some of the dispersed settlements are post-medieval, others may represent much older farming landscapes. Although many villages continue to be occupied to the present day, some 2000 nationally were abandoned in the medieval and post-medieval periods and others have shrunken. In the second half of the C20, research focussed on when and why this occurred. Current orthodoxy sees settlements of all periods as fluid entities, being created and disappearing, expanding and contracting and sometimes shifting often over a long period of time. Abandonment may have occurred as early as the C11 or continued into the C20, although it seems to have peaked during the C14 and C15. In the East Midlands sub-Province, Roberts and Wrathmell identified that the sites of many settlements, most of which were first documented in Domesday Book of 1086, are still occupied by modern villages, but others have been partially or wholly deserted and are marked by earthwork remains. Research into Northamptonshire medieval villages highlights two prevalent causes of settlement change namely the shift from arable farming to sheep pasture in the C15 and C16 (requiring larger tracts of land to be made available for grazing) and the enclosure of open fields from the late C16 through to the mid C19 for emparkment or agricultural improvement. Despite the commonly held view that plague caused the abandonment of many villages, the documentary evidence available confirms only one such case in Northamptonshire, the former settlement of Hale in Apethorpe. Recent attention on the evidence for medieval agricultural practices, typically found in the hinterland of the settlements, has highlighted the survival of the earthwork remains of ‘ridge and furrow’. The Introduction to Heritage Assets on Field Systems explains that the origins of ridge and furrow cultivation can be traced to the C10 or before. By the C13, the countryside had acquired a widespread corrugated appearance as settlement developed into a pattern of ‘townships’ (basic units of community life and farming activity). The cultivated ridges, individual strips known as ‘lands’, were incorporated into similarly aligned blocks known as ‘furlongs’, separated from each other by raised ridges known as ‘headlands’ which, in turn, were grouped into two, three or sometimes four large unenclosed ‘Great Fields’. These fields occupied much of the available land in each township but around the fringes lay areas of meadow, pasture (normally unploughable land on steep slopes or near water) and woodland. The characteristic pattern of ridge and furrow was created by ploughing clockwise and anti-clockwise to create lines of flanking furrows interspersed with ridges of ploughed soil. The action of the plough, pulled by oxen, takes the form of a reversed ‘S’-shape when seem in plan. The furrows enabled the land to drain and demarcated individual farmer’s plots of land within the Great Fields. The open-field system ensured that furlongs and strips were fairly distributed through different parts of the township and that one of the Great Fields was left fallow each year. Winwick is first documented in Domesday Book of 1086 although there is a growing body of evidence in the form of archaeological finds and deposits to suggest that it was occupied before this date; archaeologcal excavation in 2006 indicates at least late Saxon origins (Leigh 2008). In Domesday, the village was recorded as being held by the Abbey of Coventry. Winwick 'has 3 hides and 1 virgate of land …. There was land for 6 ½ ploughs. There are in demesne 3 ploughs; and 16 villans and 5 bordars, with a priest, have 3 ploughs. It is worth 50s'. There was a recorded population of 31 including the priest. In the Middle Ages the focus of the village a was apparently further downstream than it is today with the site of the manorial centre marked by a well-defined moated platform to the north-east of the current village. No further details of population are known until the C17 when 25 people paid the Hearth Tax of 1673. A Tithe Map of 1839 shows the village almost as it is today. The Cistercian Pipewell Abbey was founded in 1143 and included a grange in Winwick. In 1266 it is documented that ' There were then at Causton Grange two large ovens, where they baked weekly sixteen quarters of corn for common bread, and six of better quality for the monks and lay brethren and their servants in their granges of Dunchurch, Thurlaston, Rokeby, 'Lalleford,' Newbold, and 'Thirnmilne,' in Warwickshire, and for their granges of Ashby, Winwick, and Elkington, in Northamptonshire.' Although the location of the grange at Winwick is not certain, the Tithe map of 1839 records the field containing the moated platform as 'Great Grange' which certainly implies this was the site of the monastic grange. The common fields of the parish of Winwick were enclosed by Act of Parliament of 1794 but at least part of it was enclosed by 1652. The church dates to the C13 and the current manor house to the C16 but the latter is understood to stand on the site of an earlier manor. The manorial control of the village has changed over centuries but throughout this time the character of the parish has remained agricultural. Archaeological excavations were carried out in 2006 (Leigh 2008) in advance of a new sewage treatment plant and underground pumping station. Details This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 01/09/2014. PRINCIPAL ELEMENTS The settlement is located between two south-flowing streams, on the slopes of a spur of land which lies between 138m and 114m above OD. The top of the spur is capped in Northampton Sand but at the northern end this is overlaid by Boulder Clay. DESCRIPTION The settlement survives as a series of earthwork, buried and standing remains surrounding the currently inhabited core of Winwick village. It is not possible to say if the extensive remains represent the maximum expansion of the village at any one time or are the results of changes in location and layout over a long period. The latter appears more likely because some of the earthworks, particularly in the north-west have been over ploughed with ridge and furrow but others in the south-east survive as sharply defined features. The village therefore appears to have moved gradually upstream. At the north-west end of the village are the remains of the small moated enclosure, believed to be the site of the monastic grange, consisting of an island about 40m across surrounded by a ditch c.1.2m deep. This feature has been over-ploughed with medieval ridge and furrow, suggesting it is at least early medieval in date. Approximately 180m south-east of the moat is a group of at least three long closes or crofts with tofts (house platforms) at their north-eastern ends. The crofts are subdivided by low scarps and are bounded by scarps and ditches. The whole area, excluding the house sites, is covered by later ridge and furrow. An earthwork survey and trial excavation in advance of a sewage replacement scheme (Leigh 2008) has shown a dense occupation of the area between C12-C14 with some deposits and a ditch cut in the Saxon period. A wide hollow way which is understood locally to have been the main route to the existing manor house on the other side of the valley, separates these closes or crofts from a group of smaller and more sharply defined enclosures, some of which are embanked as well as ditched. The modern road cuts across the southern corner of this area and probably replaced an earlier route which survives as a hollow way up to c.1.2m deep, continuing west on the general line of the lane as it leaves the village. To the south-west of the lane are further closes. These have not been overploughed in ridge and furrow but the southern group have been rounded somewhat by modern ploughing although are now under permanent pasture. Despite having been ploughed in the past, aerial photographs (English Heritage, 2013) indicate the survival of archaeological deposits beneath the ground surface. On the east side of the stream, and of the road that follows it, is a row of at least seven crofts containing tofts. These are very well preserved and two of the tofts were still depicted on the 1839 Tithe map. Fragments of post-medieval pottery have been found here. On the higher ground behind the existing cottages, and to the east of the church, is a further group of ditched and scarped enclosures. These earthworks survive up to 1m in height and are bounded on the south-east by a sunken lane, which continued as a hollow way across the field to the east, and on the north-west by a wide hollow way which runs along the south side of the large mound on which the Church of St Michael (NHLE 1229677) is situated. Two parallel ditches north-west of the church may define the original driveway to the hall. At the eastern end of the village lies the Grade II listed Winwick Mill, an example of a C19 mill including the Old Bakehouse and Mill House (NHLE 1229907). Although the standing structures of the former mill are considered to be primarily C19, a mill at Winwick was included in the gift of Richard de Blickville to the monks of Pipewell and in 1652 a Richard Draper was the tenant of 'an overmill' at Winwick valued at £10. The water management features for the mill survive partly as earthworks and partly as water-filled features but taken as a whole it seems that several phases of the mill's development and its associated water management features are preserved. Such preservation has the potential to retain significant organic archaeological deposits pertaining to the historic physical environment and specifically to the evolution of the mill itself. Many of the medieval agricultural fields representing the economy of the village have been destroyed particularly on the north-east side of the settlement, but to the south-east, south-west and north-west of the village the layout is legible either on the ground or from aerial photographs. Evidence of cultivation in the form of ridge and furrow is arranged in end-on and interlocked furlongs in response to the direction of the slope. Behind the empty closes of the abandoned areas of the village the ridges all run up the slope to the higher ground. The best preserved ridge and furrow can be seen at the extreme north-west of the village, to the east and south of Winwick Grange, and at the south-eastern end of the village, east of Winwick Mill and Winwick Hall. EXTENT OF SCHEDULING The area of scheduling extends around the entire village of Winwick including fields surrounding the inhabited settlement where earthworks of the former settlement or its associated field system are known to survive. The scheduling is defined by two areas of protection. The largest of the scheduled areas stretches from grid reference SP6182474111 to the south-west of Winwick Grange in the north-west to Winwick Mill in the south-east and from the fields south-east of Winwick Hall in the east to the Well House (NHLE 1278959) in the west. Both areas of protection are defined by modern field boundaries with the exception of the linear feature running south-east of the mill. Here the edge of the scheduled area runs either side of the earthworks defining what is understood to be a water management feature but includes a 2m boundary from the upper edge of the feature which was considered necessary for its support and preservation. The smaller of the two areas of protection lies to the east of the Church of St Michael and begins at its western extent at grid reference SP6258973843. From here the line runs to the north-east following the northern boundary of small paddocks to the rear of Old School House and then two larger paddocks opposite Rectory Cottage. The area of protection is defined on all sides by field boundary fences or hedges A number of features are excluded from the scheduling, including all modern fences, path and road surfaces, signage, drain covers, gates and styles, although the ground beneath all these features is included. Completely excluded from the scheduling, including the ground beneath, is Winwick Mill House, Winwick Old Mill, The Old Bakehouse and Courtyard Cottage. Also completely excluded is the sewage works to the west of the Church of St Michael. It is considered unlikely that significant archaeological remains will survive below ground here. Selected Sources Book Reference - Author: Allison, K J and Beresford, M W and Hurst, J G - Title: The Deserted Villages of Northamptonshire - Date: 1966 - Type: DESC TEXT Book Reference - Author: Peers, C - Title: The Victoria History of the County of Northamptonshire - Date: 1906 - Page References: 116-121 Book Reference - Author: Roberts and Wrathmell - Title: An Atlas of Rural Settlement in England - Date: 2000 Book Reference - Author: Hall, D - Title: The Open Fields of Northamptonshire - Date: 1995 Book Reference - Author: Everson and Green in Dyer (ed) - Title: Medieval Villages Revisited - Date: 2010 Book Reference - Author: Partida, T and Hall, D and Foard, G - Title: An Atlas of Northamptonshire The Medieval and Early-Modern Landscape - Date: 2013 Book Reference - Author: Aston, M and Austin, D and Dyer, C(eds) - Title: The Rural Settlements of Medieval England: Studies dedicated to Maurice Beresford and John Hurst - Date: 1989 Book Reference - Author: Hall, D - Title: Turning the Plough. Midland Open Fields;landscape character and proposals for management - Date: 2001 Book Reference - Author: Astill, G and Grant, A - Title: The Countryside of Medieval England - Date: 1988 Other Reference - Description: Northamptonshire Historic Environment Record (HER) Book Reference - Author: Williamson, T., Liddiard,R., and Partida, T - Title: Champion. The Making and Unmaking of the English Midland Landscape - Date: 2013

Record last edited

Dec 3 2019 3:29PM