Monument record 4797 - Hartwell End

Remains of a Medieval settlement, with a possible moated site & pottery kiln.

{1} Nothing is known of the history and name of the site. Elms Farm was probably recorded along with Hartwell for Tax purposes etc. Plans of Hartwell township and earthwork plan of settlement remains at Hartwell End.

{2} Elms Farm was formerly known as Tythe Farm.

{3} Hartwell End Farm was recorded by that name in 1538.

{4} Deserted vill around Hartwell End Farm. Ridge and furrow and hollow ways and vill earthworks. 1 of 6 small settlements comprising Hartwell township.

{5} Elms Farm, Hartwell, is situated to the south-east of the modern village of Hartwell and immediately to the west of the Royal Forest of Salcey. There are indications of mediaeval settlement on the site in the form of the remains of a moat to the south-east of the house, now just an L-shaped pond but as recently as 1828 surviving as three sides of a rectangle {6}, and the regular discovery of mediaeval pottery fragments in the vicinity {7}. As early as the thirteenth century St John’s Hospital in Northampton owned land in Hartwell. In 1515 all the hospital’s possessions in Hartwell, including the site of Elms Farm, were leased to Richard Wake, and eleven tears later he was given the estate in fee (the fee farm rent passing to the Crown at the Dissolution). In 1546 he settled ‘the mansion house of Hartwell called St John’s House’ and its associated lands on his second wife Margaret, with remainder to his son Richard.
The St John’s estate in Hartwell eventually passed to the younger Richard Wake, who died in 1581, and then to his sons Robert, who died in 1620, and Richard, who died in 1628. Neither Robert nor Richard left any children, and the estate then passed to a 26-year-old cousin, Sir John Wake, who in 1628 also inherited a baronetcy from his father, Sir Baldwin Wake of Clevedon and Piddington. Young Sir John Wake had extravagant tastes but insufficient funds to realise them. In 1630 he had to sell the main family estate, Clevedon Court, and other lands in Somerset which had belonged to his father. He then settled in Northamptonshire, at Hartwell. By 1637 he was Lieutenant and Forester of Salcey Forest, but in the preceding years he had been fined several times for breaches of forest law, including one occasion in 1635 when he was fined £20 for felling thirty oaks, and for building a kitchen and repairing his house without seeking permission. It is possible that this could be related to the room on the ground floor in the east wing at Elms Farm with its massive chimney and generous chamfered cross-beam.
Sir John’s situation went from bad to worse. He was an ardent Royalist and raised a troop of horse for the King shortly after the outbreak of the Civil War in 1642. His possessions were sequestrated, he was robbed of £2,000 after a Royalist defeat, and he spent time incarcerated in the King’s Bench Prison. When he died in 1658, in prison, he was £5,000 in debt.
Tradition has it that Elms farm was damaged during the Civil War, and this might well explain the fragmentary nature of the early part of what must have been a substantial building. Musket balls are said to have been found close by {8}, and the house is less than four miles away from Grafton Regis, which was besieged, attacked and ruined in December 1643 when it was garrisoned for the King by Sir John’s Wake’s uncle and good friend, Sir John Digby. The Wake house at Hartwell, such a short distance away, would have been another obvious target for the Parliamentary troops.
The Wake family finally sold their Hartwell estate, heavily mortgaged, in 1687, and it passed through several owners, including the family of the Earls of Halifax, from Horton, between 1717 and 1789. They presumably built the north-west range. In the early twentieth century the house was bought by Christopher Finnegan, and the estate is still owned by his family. In recent years, parts of the house and outbuildings have been decorated with a variety of architectural salvage.

<1> Royal Commission on The Historical Monuments of England, 1982, An Inventory of The Historical Monuments in The County of Northampton, p.76-78 site 4 (checked) (Series). SNN77382.

<2> Ordnance Survey, 1835, Ordnance Survey 1st edition 1 inch map, (unchecked) (Map). SNN61232.

<3> Gover J.E.B.; Mawer A.; Stenton F.M. (Eds.), 1933, The Place-names of Northamptonshire, p.100 (unchecked) (Series). SNN5881.

<4> HALL D.N., 1993, The Open Fields of Northamptonshire : The Case for the Preservation of Ridge and Furrow, p.38 (part checked) (Report). SNN70145.

<5> Smith N., 2007, Draft Rreport on Elms Farm, (unchecked) (Draft). SNN105810.

<6> NRO ZB135/13/24, (unchecked) (Document). SNN105811.

<7> Collection at Elms Farm, (unchecked) (Archive). SNN105812.

<8> Kendrick-Simonsen J., Oral Report to South Northamptonshire Council, (unchecked) (Oral Report). SNN105813.

<9> Hall D., 2001, The Woodland Landscapes of Southern Northamptonshire, p.33-46 (unchecked) (Article). SNN102520.

Record last edited

Feb 3 2025 8:04PM