Monument record 49 - Great Purston

DMV (site of)

{1}Refers to 3 settlements: there was a Purston in Kings Sutton and in Newbottle parish, and a Little Purston. In the 3 settlements combined, 16 people paid the Lay Subsidy in 1301; in 1495 6 houses were destroyed to convert 280 acres of land to pasture; 5 people paid the Lay Subsidy in 1524. The main street may have lay along the parish boundary. The significance of Little Purston is not known.
The remains of Purston in King's Sutton parish lie immediately N. of the curving parish boundary and N.E. of the Manor House. They consist of an irregular arrangement of small rectangular paddocks or closes bounded by low banks and scarps nowhere above 0.5 m. high but form no coherent pattern unless the present parish boundary was formerly a through road. There is a little evidence for this at the E. end of the site where a possible hollow-way, cut into by later quarrying, can be seen as well as what appears to be the N. side of the hollow-way further W. along the parish boundary. If this feature was indeed a street then the hamlet of Great Purston consisted of houses on both sides of a single street but the houses on each side lay in different parishes (now King's Sutton and Newbottle). Moreover, each side of the hamlet had its own land unit.
South of the parish boundary in Newbottle, nothing survives of the settlement on the ground, the area having been ploughed and returned to grassland. On air photos taken before this, some slight traces of embanked closes partly over-ploughed by later ridge and furrow are visible. NCCAP: SP5139/4+9-15.
Further south is a rectangular layout of scarps and other disturbances which are overlaid by later ridge and furrow. These remains are within the area of Purston Manor's gardens but still appear to be part of the deserted medieval village.

{2} Purston is first recorded in Domesday as two small manors with a population of 7 - one is perhaps the single farm at Little Purston and the other, the other 2 Purstons combined. Each Purston had its own land unit.

{3} Purston was was still described as a hamlet in the early C18th

{4} Deserted 1450-1700. In 1488 300 acres enclosed and converted to pasture and 6 houses destroyed by Lord Grey. In 1547 P Dormer (Lee Grange, Bucks) kept 1000 sheep here. There are still some 20 people living there today.

{7} Cropmark enclosure.

{9} The fields adjacent to the Manor House have been under cultivation for many years, there are slight surface undulations and disturbances but there is now no surveyable evidence of desertion. OS air cover (1955) inspected with negative results. There is still a local tradition of Purston village.

<1> Royal Commission on The Historical Monuments of England, 1982, An Inventory of The Historical Monuments in The County of Northampton, p.94/Site 11 & p. 106/Site 4 (Series). SNN77382.

<2> Ryland, W, Adkins, D, and Serjeantson, R M, 1902, The Victoria History of the Counties of England: Northamptonshire, p.326+334 (unchecked) (Series). SNN100368.

<3> Bridges J., 1791, The History and Antiquities of Northamptonshire, p.180 (unchecked) (Book). SNN77325.

<4> Allison K.J.; Beresford M.W.; Hurst J.G. et al, 1966, The Deserted Villages of Northamptonshire, p.45 (unchecked) (Report). SNN39628.

<5> Ordnance Survey, 1950s/1960s, Ordnance Survey Record Cards, SP53NW1 (checked) (Index). SNN443.

<6> Brown F.M.; Taylor C.C., 1978, Settlement and Land Use in Northamptonshire: A Comparison Between the Iron Age and the Middle Ages, p.77-89 (unchecked) (Article). SNN102466.

<7> Foard G.; Richardson D., 1983, Archaeology in Northamptonshire 1982 (Aerial Photography), p.181 Kings Sutton (checked) (Notes). SNN100412.

<8> Aerial Photograph, APs (RAF CPE/UK/1929 3246-7 16.1.47) (Photographs). SNN112974.

<9> Colquhoun, FD, 1977, Field Investigators Comments, F1 FDC 11-JAN-77 (Notes). SNN114135.

Record last edited

Feb 3 2025 8:12PM