Monument record 400 - Badby

Remains of a Medieval settlement were seen as earthworks, suggesting village shrinkage.

{1} Speculation about irregular shape of village being derived from its origins in a woodland environment. Badby and Newnham belong to Abbey of Evesham in the Middle Ages. In the early C12th Badby contained 21 villeins and 11 cottars. By the late C12th it was all villein holdings. In the early C12th the demesne land was let out to free tenants, but by the late C12th it had been resumed by the abbey. In the C13th the village extended to an area known as the Cotlands, between Badby and Newnham; this was possibly due to financial difficulty and the need to get the maximum return from rents (although there is no documentary proof of this).

{3} The complexity of the original village plan in this area is shown. No buildings were present in 1779, but some hollow ways and closes are shown.

{5} The earthwork remains add to the complexity of the village plan which in any case is difficult to interpret. The south part of Badby consists of a loop road set on land sloping down to the north. The church with a small triangular green on the east occupies the highest point, and the loop is divided into two unequal parts by a further lane running north west from the green. Outside the loop, on the north east, is another small green. The north part of the village, beyond the loop, is built round a large roughly rectangular green. This plan has been explained as a characteristic type of settlement in a forest environment, with the freedom to develop loops and greens unconfined by the limits of the common fields. However it seems that the true explanation is more complex, for example the large rectangular green to the north of the loop with a back land on the west might be interpreted as a deliberately planned extension to the original village. In addition, the Enclosure Map of Badby shows other lanes which have now fallen out of use, especially on the south west side of the village.

SP 560 589 Complex of earthworks formerly around and between existing houses (now mostly built over and destroyed). Unusual village plan consisting of looped streets (possibly settled in a former forest environment). NE of church was the site of a N-S hollow way and associated closes. NW of the village are three further closes. During building in the first area pottery of 13th and 14th cent types including Potterspury,Coventry and Lyveden ware plus an unidentified onion shaped jar were recovered associated with a large area of stone flags [RCHM plan published]

{6} The village is organised around a double loop of roads, accentuated rather than obscured by post-war building. Villages having looped streets are commonly found among the wooded country on the Northamptonshire-Warwickshire border, the north-eastern extension of the Cotswold Scarp. It may reflect a husbandry in which field and forest, champion and bocage, lived side by side; in which the medieval village had carried through into its period of expansion something of its earliest form of a group of houses in a clearing.

{8} Collection of photographs of buildings in the village dating from the 1960s onwards.

<1> BROWN A.E., 1991, Badby, Northamptonshire, p.19-21 (part checked) (Article). SNN41344.

<2> BROWN A.E., 1991, Early Daventry (An Essay In Early Landscape Planning), (unchecked) (Book). SNN57948.

<3> 1779, Badby Enclosure Map, (unchecked) (Map). SNN8913.

<4> BROWN A.E., Badby Village, (unchecked) (Plan). SNN105212.

<5> Royal Commission on The Historical Monuments of England, 1981, An Inventory of The Historical Monuments in The County of Northampton, p.8 site 4 (checked) (Series). SNN77381.

<6> Beresford, M.W. & St. Joseph, J.K.S., 1958, Medieval England: An Aerial Survey, p.129 (unchecked) (Book). SNN77361.

<7> Bennett-Samuels M., 2006, A Desk-based Archaeological Assessment of Badby House, South of Daventry, Northamptonshire, (unchecked) (Report). SNN105681.

<8> Various, Various, Photographs of buildings in Badby (Photographs). SNN111138.

<9> Brown A.E. (Editor), 1974, Archaeology In Northamptonshire 1973, P. 103 (Article). SNN9109.

<10> Royal Air Force, Vertical Aerial Photography, RAF CPE/UK/1994, 1275-6 (Photographs). SNN104890.

<11> RCHME, Undated, RCHME Inventory: Northamptonshire II (Central), AF0615738; 890729, 890790 (Archive). SNN112900.

Record last edited

Jan 31 2025 2:32PM