Monument record 2921 - Deenethorpe

Deenethorpe medieval settlement remains suggest village shrinkage

{1} The main medieval road from Northampton to Stamford ran through Deenethorpe and the hollow way still survives. The scatter of pottery on the road running off to the east may indicate the presence of an earlier settlement focus which has later shifted down onto the main road. However, the manor does lie on the latter, a regular double row, and the regularity may be an original late Saxon replanning with the development along the eastern road just a secondary expansion during the medieval period.

{2} A photograph of an old map of the area of Deenethorpe.

{3} Settlement Remains (SP 95959185), formerly part of Deenethorpe village, on the S. side of the road to Benefield, on the steep side of a valley. A map of c. 1585 shows a series of small closes along the road, but by then already without buildings. A low mound, almost ploughed-out, still exists and a large quantity of medieval pottery, including Lyveden wares, has been found on this site.

{4} Deenethorpe township appears, from its ecclesiastical dependency and from its subsidiary 'thorpe' place name, to represent subdivision of the territory of Deene. The township may have been the result of clearance of an extensive area of woodland on the boulder clay. It does not appear in Domesday or the 12th-century Survey and a separate manor only appears in documentary sources in 1362-3 when the Knyvets held a third of it. The village lies on a narrow strip of permeable geology and has a highly rectilinear plan-form similar to many other villages in the forest. The primary element appears to be the rectilinear double row running parallel to the scarp below the road to Benefield. This road, in 1675, was the post-road from london to Oakham and may have been an important medieval route, although in 1586 it was described as the 'way leading to the Forest'.

<1> 1585, Map of Deenethorpe, (unchecked) (Map). SNN59204.

<2> MAP, (unchecked) (Map). SNN47294.

<3> Brown, A.E. (Ed.), 1970, Archaeology in Northamptonshire 1969 (Medieval), p. 10 (Article). SNN30971.

<4> Foard, G.; Hall, D. & Partida, T., 2009, Rockingham Forest: An atlas of the medieval and early-modern landscape, p. 205-206 (Book). SNN106598.

Record last edited

Oct 5 2026 10:18AM