Scheduled Monument: Steane medieval village (1418381)

Summary of Monument The earthwork and buried remains of the medieval village of Steane. Reasons for Designation The medieval village at Steane is scheduled for the following principal reasons: * Survival: for the exceptional survival of earthworks and buried remains depicting the form and plan of the settlement; * 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 documentation pertaining to the settlement’s evolution; * Group value: for its close proximity and historical association with Steane Park House and stables (listed at Grade II) and the Chapel of St Peter (listed at Grade I) and undesignated heritage assets such as the Roman settlement site and former fish ponds to the north-east; * Diversity: for the range and complexity of features such as building platforms, crofts, trackways, 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, manorial centre and designed landscape. History The village, comprising a small group of houses (tofts), gardens (crofts), yards, streets, paddocks, a manor and a church, sometimes a green, occupied by a community devoted primarily to agriculture, was a significant component of the rural landscape in much of lowland 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, and exhibit a variety of plan-forms, from the highly irregular at one extreme to planned villages with 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 and hamlets continue to be occupied to the present day, some 2,000 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 desertion and shrinkage 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. The survey conducted by the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments for England (RCHME) in 1982 and the information held in the Northamptonshire Historic Environment Record (HER) provide archaeological evidence for the village remains at Steane and a series of fish ponds to the north, much remodelled in the C18. The area is rich in archaeological remains; the buried deposits of an extensive Romano-British settlement have recently been discovered just to the north of the park. The RCHME records that at the time of Domesday in 1086, Steane was recorded as a two-hide manor with a population of 18. In 1301, 16 people paid the Lay Subsidy and in 1377 51 people over the age of 14 paid Poll Tax. By 1428, owing to enclosure of the open fields, there had apparently been some shrinkage as only 10 households were recorded. The manor was held by the Lovel family at this time, but was forfeited to the Crown in 1485. The late medieval manor house was probably built by Sir Reginald Bray in c.1495. His descendent, Temperance Bray, married Sir Thomas Crewe, the Speaker of the House of Commons, who built a new manor house in a different location and also the present Chapel of St Peter (listed at Grade I) in 1620. The chapel incorporates fragments of C14 and C15 fabric, but it is unclear whether it stands on the site of the medieval church. Bridges writing in 1720 noted that there was by then only one house left in the village, in addition to the manor house, further commenting that ‘there was once here a flourishing town’. Writing in 1753, Walpole records that there are ‘remains of the mansion house but quite in ruins’; the manor house was rebuilt in the C19. There are pleasure grounds to the north of the manor house, known as Steane Park House (listed at Grade II) and parkland to the south and east of it. In the pleasure grounds are a number of interconnected fish ponds, channels and former water features, some of which may have medieval origins, but all appear to have been remodelled in the C17 or C18 as part of the designed landscape; an illustration of the early C18 shows one of these ponds immediately to the north of the house. The earthwork remains of a fish pond recorded by the RCHME to the north of the main east-west drive to the house are no longer visible. The village site was incorporated into the wider parkland after enclosure and is currently used for grazing; a small post-medieval quarry on the site produced C13 and C14 pottery. Details PRINCIPAL ELEMENTS The site includes the earthworks and buried archaeological remains of the former medieval settlement of Steane located to the south-west of Steane Park House and stables (both listed at Grade II) and the Chapel of St Peter (listed at Grade I), on land historically known as Knoll Field within Steane Park, and centred at SP55203892. DESCRIPTION The earthworks of a rectangular arrangement of enclosures, crofts (gardens), tofts (houses) and hollow ways survive to between 0.5m and 1.00m in height. Two probable hollow ways are apparent. A north-south hollow way, immediately west of the post and rail fence which demarcates the eastern extent of the village earthworks, meets an approximately east-west aligned hollow way towards the southern end of the site. The latter survives particularly well and has to its north three rectangular enclosures formed by banks and ditches and covering a level area of approximately 80m x 200m. The enclosure to the north of the east-west hollow way contains four possible tofts evident as level areas defined by banks or scarps; a small post-medieval quarry has removed part of the west bank of the enclosure. To the north two enclosures of approximately the same size contain crofts, all defined by banks. There is a low mound near to the north-east corner. To the east of the enclosures is a possible hollow way, although the HER considers that the earthworks in this part of the site, close to the small valley of a watercourse, may represent field terraces. The RCHME survey records ridge and furrow preserved in parkland to the east of the earthworks, but this no longer survives. EXTENT OF SCHEDULING The monument is defined by a post and wire fence to the east, to the north by the drive to Steane Park House, the Chapel and associated buildings and to the west by a wall which runs along the side of the roadway to the estate which leads from the main A422 road. To the south a wall and fence marks the boundary between the scheduled monument and an access road to a separate property which fronts the A422 known in 2013 as Thrupny-bit House. The walls, all posts, fences, gates and fixed modern structures are excluded from the scheduling but the ground beneath them is included. There is considerable potential for undesignated heritage assets to survive to the north and north-east of the medieval settlement, in particular the fishponds and water features which are an integral part of the pleasure grounds to the house may have medieval origins, but are excluded from the scheduling because of their reconfiguration as part of the designed landscape in the C17 and later. 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: Royal Commission on Historical Monuments of England - Title: The County of Northamptonshire - Date: 1981 - Type: DESC TEXT Book Reference - Author: Roberts, B K and Wrathmell, S - Title: An Atlas of Rural Settlement in England - Date: 2003 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: 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 Book Reference - Author: Christie, N and Stamper, P (eds) - Title: Medieval Rural Settlement: Britain and Ireland AD 800-1600 - Date: 2012 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

Jul 21 2014 5:42PM