Building record 130/29/1 - Nos.82 to 88 High Street (even) (Foeffee Charity Almshouses)

Almshouses founded for 6 aged widows by Sir Thomas Crew in 1633 endowed with £24 and increased by Nathaniel Lord Crew, Bishop of Durham, in 1721 with the addition of £12. A range of six two storey tenements.

{1} Almshouses founded for 6 aged widows by Sir Thomas Crew in 1633 endowed with £24 and increased by Nathaniel Lord Crew, Bishop of Durham, in 1721 with the addition of £12. Range of 6 tenements. 2-storeyed C17 coursed rubble with a continuous hood mould to ground floor; 3 light stone mullioned windows. Elliptical-headed stone doorways. 6 goblets with 2-light stone mullioned windows with moulded square labels in them. Stone slate roof. 4 moulded stone stacks with modern brick shafts. In the centre of the front is a shield of arms:- A lion rampant impaling a chevron between 3 eagles' legs razed and on the chevron a molet for difference, for Sir Thomas Crewe of Stone, Northants (Speaker 1623-25; d 1634) and his wife Temperance, daughter and coheir of Reginald Bray of Stone. At the back the range is one-storeyed with single-light stone moulded windows.

{3} Almshouses. Range of six almshouses established by Thomas Crewe in 1633. The buildings are still in use as almshouses and are run by the Foeffee Charity.

{4} The building known in recent times as the Almshouses seems to have been founded on the site of previous tenements in c.1633 by Sir Thomas Crewe, for six poor persons. By the 1760s the Almshouses lay within a wide plot fronting onto the High Street, the building covering the same area as at present and indeed it may in origin be the same building. The Almshouse plot extended behind the tenement immediately to the south.
The almshouse plot already had a close to the rear at this time but this did not extend the full width of the frontage onto High Street, the result of the southern area being separate tenements in the 15th century. The closes attached to the tenement on the south side were appended to the tenement at Inclosure, in 1830. Prior to this the land to the rear was open field.

{5} Undated photo, also photo of Nos. 86 and 88 dated 02.07.1993, also photo of No. 82 and 84 dated 02.07.1993;

<1> Clews Architects, 1980s, Database for Listing of Historic Buildings of Special Architectural Interest: Northamptonshire, 2/1 (Digital archive). SNN102353.

<2> List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest ("Greenback"), H17 p.16 (unchecked) (Catalogue). SNN45262.

<3> Ballinger J., 1999, Northamptonshire Extensive Urban Survey: Industrial Period, (checked) (Digital archive). SNN4.

<4> Ballinger J.; Foard G., 1999, Northamptonshire Extensive Urban Survey: Brackley, Section 3.3.4 Almshouses (checked) (Digital archive). SNN100499.

<5> Photographs of buildings in Brackley (Photographs). SNN112141.

<6> Historic England, Undated, SIR THOMAS CREWES ALMSHOUSES, BRACKLEY, BF082304 (Archive). SNN114109.

Record last edited

Sep 22 2022 2:21PM