Monument record 130 - Brackley

Brackley lies in the south west of the county in the upper reaches of the Ouse valley, astride the main medieval road from Northampton to Oxford. It is one of only two planned towns in Northamptonshire in which an urban settlement was planned on a new site quite separate from an existing village. The other example is Catesby, which sits at the other extreme of the settlement hierarchy to Brackley, being a failed town that never achieved urban status though it did function as a market village for many decades. There can be little truth in Leland's claim that ‘this towne flourished in the Saxon tyme ontyll the Danes rasid it’. In 1086 Brackley was an agricultural village with two manorial holdings which appears to have been an estate and ecclesiastical centre. Within a century of the conquest the New Town with its own field system was carved out of that of the original village, thereafter known as the Old Town. The town was probably founded by the second, or possibly the first, Earl of Leicester. Brackley profited substantially from the wool trade, being involved in not just local but also international trade, and grew to become the second wealthiest town in Northamptonshire by the early 14th century. It had more urban attributes than any settlement in the county outside Northampton, including self governing borough status granted in a charter of 1260, a market, two hospitals, two separate parishes and a castle. Throughout the medieval period it, or the associated hamlet of Halse, was an important manorial residence and the town hosted a number of 13th and early 14th century tournaments. The New Town appears to have been laid out around a new market place that was established along the main Oxford to Northampton road. The road have been diverted onto its present course at the time of the planning of the new town but it is more likely that this road was one of a network of new roads constructed in the late Saxon period to connect the burhs. A second, possibly even the original, focus of the town was the castle of the Earl of Leicester and the adjacent St. James's Chapel, which both lay at the western edge of Brackley close to where the Oxford road crosses the boundary with Evenley. The town expanded north-east from along the main road until the old and new towns were physically joined. The New Town’s status as a self governing borough was confirmed in a charter of 1260, although burgages are recorded in the town as early as 1210. The transformation of the wool trade in the late medieval period, with a concentration on the Cotswold wool towns, saw Brackley’s commercial base collapse. With its major source of wealth removed, Brackley went into rapid decline, falling back on its lesser function as a purely local marketing centre and on providing services to travellers on this major road. Hence by the mid 16th century Camden could describe disparagingly that the town ‘now only boasts how great and wealthy it once was by its ruins, and by the mayor it retains for its chief magistrate’. Under the influence of its important lord in the 18th century the fortunes of the town recovered somewhat but it has continued, to the present day, in the role of a local marketing centre. Over the post medieval period perhaps its greatest influence was in the two parliamentary representatives which it returned as a 'Rotten Borough' from 1547 until the Reform Act of 1832. Brackley continued to operate through the 19th and 20th centuries as a commercial centre for the surrounding locality with a market, several fairs, a large number of inns and public houses and a wide range of specialist retail outlets. The role of the town was enhanced during the coaching era of the 18th and early 19th centuries when Brackley became a major coaching town and again with the importance of the hunting season in the later 19th century. There was only a very modest level of industrialisation in the town until the later 20th century. It had a small trade in boots and shoes and in malting and brewing, but this was clearly secondary to the retail function of the town. Unlike the small towns and several villages in the Ise Valley, Brackley did not undergo a large-scale process of urbanisation in the late 19th century. The town is exceptionally well documented in the medieval and post medieval period, due particularly to the fact that the property of St. John’s Hospital, a major landholder in the town, was acquired as part of its foundation endowment by Magdalen College Oxford. These sources have enabled detailed reconstruction of the late medieval topography of the town and for its evolution to be traced through the post medieval period. Brackley also appears, from previous work, to have a high archaeological potential, while historic buildings survive in sufficient numbers to offer reasonable potential for the enhancement of the post medieval if not the medieval history of the town. This, combined with the potential from documentary sources, means that Brackley must be considered one of the towns with the highest potential in the county.

{2} Town was in decline in the C16th when abandoned streets were noted.

{4} Brackley's almshouses at SP587374 were founded in 1633 and may have been a successor to the hospital.

{5} Remains found in the garden of Mr Nicholl. Two lancets under a semi-circular arch dated c.1200 AD. Suggested link with St Leonard's hospital. Also finds of Romano-British pot sherds, tile and brick, fired clay, animal bone, shell, hypercaust stone, wall plaster, slag, charcoal and tesserae, as well as post medieval clay pipes and prehistoric flints.

{8} Assessment of The Elms, High Street, site before possible evaluation. Documentary analysis by A. Barber and G. Foard.

{9} Documentary references to tenements in the post medieval period.

{10} Slide collection of mostly buildings and slides of maps. Put in the building photographic draw.

{11} Between 1235 and 1264 a grant was made by Roger de Quincy of certain liberties to the burgesses of Brackley.

{12} Brackley is first mentioned in 1086.

{14} In 1173 a new town was laid out along Oxford to Northampton road.

{15} Settlement remains (centred SP 591372) of Brackley Old Town. Brackley is listed in Domesday with a population of 24. By 1173 the new town had been laid out along the Northampton to Oxford road to the SW. The old settlement continues in use but only a few houses are recorded in later sources. Leland (C16th) mentions that the town was in decline and that there were remains of former steets. The site has been extensively redeveloped in recent years and no trace now remains. Pottery of the C12th to C14th has been found in the area.

{16} In 1086 the King held the lands which Earl Aubrey had acquired after the conquest, which included property in Alboldstow Hundred in Brackley, Syresham, Halse, Evenley and Farthinghoe and also another manor in the north west of the county at Lilbourne. The Earl had two separate holdings in Brackley. The first of these Azor had held in 1066. The capital messuage of this manor is likely to have been at Halse, not simply because the first named place in the entry is to Halse but also because some tenements in Brackley are described in the later 12th century as belonging to Halse. The estate comprised 2 hides in Halse, 2 hides in Syresham and also a third of a hide there held by Osmund, and 1 hide in Brackley.
In 1202 the town was represented separately by its own jury at the assize, and in 1210 mention is made of the burgage which Henry the baker held of the Hospital. The first specific reference to borough status is however not until 1260 when Roger de Quincy granted certain liberties to the burgesses of Brackley,
Under the patronage of the Earls of Leicester the growth of the town must have been rapid, for although its 1086 its population and valuation were not exceptional, but when compared to those of similarly sized parishes by 1173 the assize rent of Brackley was £?66.18s.4d, far too large to have been paid by a village(for further details see report)
In addition to wool and cloth related trades there was a significant involvement in the leather industry and a range of other lesser crafts, as well as construction, but perhaps inevitably the sales and services found in any town still formed a major component of the trade of the town. The range in Brackley would seem to be wider than that seen in some other towns but the data is not strictly comparable. The recorded trades would suggest more people were involved in cloth production and manufacture of garments than in the wool tradeThough undoubtedly the dominant factor in the relatively high wealth and population of Brackley compared to all other towns in Northamptonshire except for Northampton, the wool trade was only one element of the commercial base of the town. There a range of trades recorded in the town between 1250 & 1360 in the rentals and charter(for further details see report).
In 1276 the right of the Zouche family in Brackley were confirmed including the rights to a gallows.
The number of alehouses in 1755 is almost identical to Towcester, as with Towcester and other towns the number of alehouses had fallen dramatically by 1828 to just 17, presumably resulting in part from a decline in the coaching trade but also undoubtedly reflecting the decline in the fortunes of the market noted by Baker in the early 19th century. However a similar decline is seen even in Kettering and Wellingborough, where the markets thrived at this time as they moved towards an industrialisation and which would later in the century transform them into the dominant towns of the county after Northampton.
Brackley was originally sited in the area described as OLD TOWN, In 1086 Brackley seems to have comprised a single nucleated agricultural settlement. There is no topographical evidence that would suggest an early focus within the area later occupied by the new town. This pattern of oval enclosures and radiating roads skirting around them is reminiscent of the core of Daventry. This suggests a plan form that predates the late Saxon re-planning of many, if not all Northamptonshire villages. This may be a plan form primarily associated with Saxon central places rather than simply most village historic cores. There are small quantities of early-middle Saxon pottery and a single sceatta from near the church. This is as yet the only archaeological evidence to support the topographically based interpretation of the settlement core.(For Old Town/New Town land divisions see Report Fig 19).
The NEW TOWN was laid out along the main road from Oxford to Northampton, which is likely to be a new road of late Saxon or early medieval date. This road will, in part, have determined the location of the castle, at the stream crossing at the south western corner of the township, in a location where large lakes could be constructed around the site. The castle was perhaps constructed in the late 11th century. The town may have been founded at the gates of the castle and around Goose Green in the late 11th century to accompany the castle. It is however more likely that the new town was created by the second Earl of Leicester in the mid 12th century as a new foundation on the hilltop between castle and old town at the time when he funded the hospital at Brackley. The new town was focussed around a new market place created by widening the existing major road. It then probably expanded, during the later 12th and 13th centuries, to join up with both the Old Town and the castle. Indeed the expansion of tenements up to the castle gate in Castle Lane may only have occurred following the demise of the castle.The tenements of the new town lay largely along the main street. The continuously occupied frontage extended from the cross near the castle mill in the south side, where the road entered the township, to the borough stone at the north end, a length of 1.3 km.
Had the new town been founded before the mid 12th century one might have expected the Leicester Abbey property, to have included part of the new town. It was however certainly in existence in 1173 when the assize rent was far greater than that of a village. Certainly by 1202 the New Town was in formal existence as it was separately represented at the Assizes and by 1260 the term Old Town was in use to distinguish the settlement around St Peter's from the ‘Villata’ of Brackley held by Elen as part of the manor of Halse, with view of frankpledge, carts, markets, fairs etc.
Inevitably with a substantial borough, there were many other property owners who held burgages and other property within Brackley, including several of the major wool merchants. In most cases these were grants of a handful of tenements by a range of different donors. In the 13th century there were minor grants to the Abbot of nearby Biddlesden, who held at least one tenement in the town in 1240 and later at least two messuages and 1 acre of land there. Other property there was held by at least three other monastic houses: Luffield Abbey, the Prior of Wigston and the Prior of Chacomb.
The medieval borough of Brackley, as a medieval planned new town, would inevitably have has to be laid out wholly in this way and this is clearly seen in from a detailed examination of the layout of both town and open field. Because the tenement layout should be closely dateable archaeologically then it should give a clear date by which the reorganisation of the field system must have taken place. The furlong boundaries which determine the layout of the town, particularly clearly seen around the market place, are those of the subdivided furlongs, hence by the time the town was being laid out at least the first stages of the reorganisation had already occurred.
There are various references to lanes within the town throughout the medieval and post medieval period. In the 13th century: Beneite’s Lane in circa 1230-40; Horn Lane in 1240, possibly named after Richard Horn; Netherlane in 1250; Basset’s Lane in 1260-5. In the 14th century Saundreslane and Soudones Lane are recorded in 1315 and 1376 respectively, and A Smetheslane existed in the town in 1402 (The locations of these lanes are unknown).
Section 3.4.1 Borough/Burgage. Within Brackley township there is no simple relationship between parochial, secular administrative and agricultural organization, a situation rendered more confusing by the failure to recover fully the parish or borough boundaries. The Old Town lay wholly within St Peter's parish and at the time of Inclosure (1830) it appears to have had its own separate field system. Until the Charter of Incorporation of 1686 it was not part of the Borough, although even as late as the 1720s the division between Old and New towns was still recognized in the early 18th century by Bridges. Indeed according to Bridges the Old Town, which lay outside the borough enjoyed none of the privileges. Unfortunately the only mapped evidence for the borough boundary is a single boundary stone on the 1760 map. However the Tudor rentals, from which we have been able to reconstruct an almost complete plan of the tenements of the town, almost without exception only describe tenements within the borough. They exclude the properties on the east side of the High Street between Goldwell and Old Town Lane, suggesting that they were not in the borough. Indeed elsewhere one tenement is specifically referred to in 1506 and 1486 as lying in the Old Town and is likely to be in this group of tenements. It is possible that at an earlier date the tenements on the west side of the road in may also have been outside the borough. This is because whereas in the Tudor period Leicester Abbey held numerous tenements in the Old Town, as part of the Rectory manor, it held only one property in the borough, in this specific area. As the Rectory was included in the foundation grant of the Abbey by the Earl of Leicester it was probably prior to the foundation of the new town, so explaining the concentration of property in the Old Town. Various medieval charters indicate that the borough boundary ran down Goldwell Lane, for some tenements in the lane lay in the New Town while other tenements there lay in the Old Town. Such an interpretation is supported by not only the reference to St Leonards Hospital in 1280 as ‘extra Brackle’, but also more particularly in 1280-7 by the presence of a tenant to the Prior of Luffield with the name ‘Robert atte Barre’, and the reference to the ‘tenementum atte Barre’ after 1316. This tenement can be identified as lying in the High Street west just to the south of Goldwell Lane. From Goldwell it seems likely that the Goldwell brook may have been the boundary, for not only is the Leicester Abbey land restricted to the area north of the brook, also tenements identified as probably lying in the later Great Close between Bassets Lane and Goldwell Brook are described in the mid 13th century with no reference to them lying in the Old Town. If this interpretation is correct then, together with the interpretation below for the field systems, it would appear that the borough and that of the field system of the Castle do coincide.

{21} Refers to the Extensive Urban Survey for Brackley as containing the detailed historical and archaeological background. Brackley probably originated in the Sxaon period, its name deriving form either a personal name such as Bracca, or the Saxon work for bracken or fern, combined with leah, a woodland clearing. In 1086 Brackley was recorded as a village of two hides, probably in the centre of an estate focussed on St Peter's Church, with a recorded population of 24.
A short-lived castle built in the late C11th by the first Earl of Leicester, Robert de Beaumont (d.1118), may have served as the original focus for a new development in the mid C12th, a planned town called the New Town to the south-west of the original village of Brackley, subsequently referred to as the Old Town. This new town was laid out around a
broad market place on the principal route between Northampton and Oxford. The town expanded rapidly in the late C12th and early C13th, with much of its wealth derived from the wool trade. It received borough status in a charter of 1260.
The collapse of the wool trade in the C14th and C15th led to a rapid decline in Brackley’s fortunes, and Leland writing in the C16th, reported that there were many streets abandoned and derelict. However between the C17th and early C19th there was a period of recovery as the town became a major coaching centre, due to its position on the Oxford to Northampton and Banbury to Buckingham turnpike roads. The street plan and much of the fabric of the town dates to this period.

{28} Various notes and sketches of Brackley history, also painting and description of spearhead found near old castle grounds;

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Record last edited

Feb 3 2025 8:14PM