Monument record 4717 - Roade

{1} At Domesday in 1086 the village was known as Rode; some of the land in the parish was held by the King, although this lay waste, and Dodin held four fifths of a hide of Gunfrid de Chocques. The core of Roade developed somewhat irregularly along a main street just to the south of the 12th century church. The street joined the main London to Northampton road to the west to Ashton and Hartwell to the east. A secondary cluster of houses developed to the south-east of the church and there was a further small hamlet called Hyde to the west close to the border with Stoke Bruerne.
In 1542 a number of estates in the hundred of Cleley, including Roade, as well as elsewhere in Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire, were combined by Act of Parliament to become the honor of Grafton. The honor was a Crown Estate until 1706 when it passed to the 2nd Duke of Grafton in tail male. The estate was added to in the 18th and 19th centuries, but was then largely sold off in the 20th century.
Roade was, by and large, a rural farming community until the early 19th century, when the construction of the London and Birmingham Railway brought large numbers of navvies to the village. They lived in huts called ‘The Sixty’ that had been built along the route of the line as well as in the village. Outbreaks of diseases, such as typhus and smallpox, in the village were blamed on the workers and at one point there were a hundred funerals in twelve months; a significant number when the overall population of the village at that time was only c 700. Much of the railway route through the parish runs in a cutting. Roade had its own station until it closed in 1964.

<1> Walker, C., 2010, Archaeological Desk-Based Assessment of Land at 16a London Road, Roade, (checked) (Report). SNN107703.

<2> Mulholland J., 2003, Enclosure at Roade, Warmington and Whittlebury, p.62-76 (unchecked) (Article). SNN109364.

Record last edited

Jul 10 2017 3:12PM