Summary
Medieval village of Clipston, first documented in Domesday Book of 1086.
Reasons for Designation
The abandoned medieval village remains at Clipston, first documented in 1086, are scheduled for the following principal reasons:
* Survival: for the exceptional earthworks depicting the form and plan of the settlement and its associated agricultural practices;
* Potential: for the stratified archaeological deposits which retain considerable potential to increase our understanding of the physical characteristics of the buildings and settlement. Buried artefacts will also have the potential to increase our knowledge and understanding of the social and economic functioning of the settlement within the wider medieval landscape;
* Documentation: for the high level of historical and archaeological documentation pertaining to the settlement’s evolution;
* Group value: for its close proximity to 19 listed buildings, most notably the Church of All Saints (NHLE 1067033) and the historically associated medieval settlement of Nobold (NHLE 1017183);
* Diversity: for the range and complexity of features such as tofts, crofts, hollow ways, windmill, the remains of the medieval ridge and furrow and stock enclosures which, taken as a whole, provide a clear plan of the settlement and retain significant stratified deposits which serve to provide details of the continuity and change in the evolution of the settlement.
History
The village, comprising a small group of houses (tofts), gardens (crofts), yards, streets, paddocks, a manor and a church, sometimes a green, occupied by a community devoted primarily to agriculture, was a significant component of the rural landscape in much of lowland medieval England, much as it is today. The Introduction to Heritage Assets on Medieval Settlements (English Heritage, May 2011) explains that most villages were established in the C9 and C10, and exhibit a variety of plan-forms, from the highly irregular at one extreme to planned villages with tofts and crofts running back from a main road, often linked with a back lane around the rear of the crofts, and typically having a church and manor house in larger compartments at the end of the village. In recognising the great regional diversity of medieval rural settlements in England, Roberts and Wrathmell (2003) divided the country into three broad Provinces on the basis of each area's distinctive mixture of nucleated and dispersed settlements; these were further divided into sub-Provinces. The Northamptonshire settlements lie in the East Midlands sub-Province of the Central Province, an area characterised in the medieval period by large numbers of nucleated settlements. The southern part of the sub-Province has greater variety of settlement, with dispersed farmsteads and hamlets intermixed with the villages. Whilst some of the dispersed settlements are post-medieval, others may represent much older farming landscapes.
Although many villages and hamlets continue to be occupied to the present day, some 2,000 nationally were abandoned in the medieval and post-medieval periods and others have shrunken. In the second half of the C20, research focussed on when and why desertion and shrinkage occurred. Current orthodoxy sees settlements of all periods as fluid entities, being created and disappearing, expanding and contracting and sometimes shifting often over a long period of time. Abandonment may have occurred as early as the C11 or continued into the C20, although it seems to have peaked during the C14 and C15. In the East Midlands sub-Province, Roberts and Wrathmell identified that the sites of many settlements, most of which were first documented in Domesday Book of 1086, are still occupied by modern villages, but others have been partially or wholly deserted and are marked by earthwork remains. Research into Northamptonshire medieval villages highlights two prevalent causes of settlement change, namely the shift from arable farming to sheep pasture in the C15 and C16 (requiring larger tracts of land to be made available for grazing), and the enclosure of open fields from the late C16 through to the mid C19 for emparkment or agricultural improvement. Despite the commonly held view that plague caused the abandonment of many villages, the documentary evidence available confirms only one such case in Northamptonshire, the former settlement of Hale, in Apethorpe.
Recent attention on the evidence for medieval agricultural practices, typically found in the hinterland of the settlements, has highlighted the survival of the earthwork remains of ‘ridge and furrow’. The Introduction to Heritage Assets on Field Systems explains that the origins of ridge and furrow cultivation can be traced to the C10 or before. By the C13, the countryside had acquired a widespread corrugated appearance as settlement developed into a pattern of ‘townships’ (basic units of community life and farming activity). The cultivated ridges, individual strips known as ‘lands’, were incorporated into similarly aligned blocks known as ‘furlongs’, separated from each other by raised ridges known as ‘headlands’ which, in turn, were grouped into two, three or sometimes four large unenclosed ‘Great Fields’. These fields occupied much of the available land in each township but around the fringes lay areas of meadow, pasture (normally unploughable land on steep slopes or near water) and woodland. The characteristic pattern of ridge and furrow was created by ploughing clockwise and anti-clockwise to create lines of flanking furrows interspersed with ridges of ploughed soil. The action of the plough, pulled by oxen, takes the form of a reversed ‘S’-shape when seen in plan. The furrows enabled the land to drain and demarcated individual farmer’s plots of land within the Great Fields. The open-field system ensured that furlongs and strips were fairly distributed through different parts of the township and that one of the Great Fields was left fallow each year.
Within the current parish of Clipston there is evidence to suggest a long history of occupation. Roman artefact scatters found in the south of the parish indicate the site of a Romano-British settlement and during road building work on the M1-A1 link (A14) Grubenhausen (sunken timber buildings) containing early to mid Saxon pottery were also discovered in the south of the parish.
Clipston village is first documented in Domesday of 1086. The name is of Scandinavian origin meaning ‘Klyppr’s farm’ and the manorial descent is complicated. In 1086 four landowners are recorded; the Crown manor (Royal Manor of Rothwell) held 1 1/2 virgates (a measure of land) in the soc, but this ceases to be mentioned after the C12. It may have been incorporated in a manor of Geddington which itself is not identifiable after the C14. The Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds held 2 virgates which consisted of 200 acres of land in 1514 but they were dispersed after the Dissolution. There were two other larger manors in 1086; that held by the Bishop of Coutance became the fee of Huntingdon and was held by the de Clipston and Pilkington families from the early C12 to the end of the C15. The chief Lord in the C14 was the Prince of Wales, and a letter survives from Edward III to the Black Prince signed ‘at our manor of Clipston’. The manor descended to the families of Buswell and Wade by 1558. The other large manor belonged to William Peverel in 1086 and descended to the earls of Lincoln. The local tenants were the Pedwardyn family from the early C14 until the manor became dispersed in the late C15.
By 1720 Clipston became a single manor held by Sir Justinian Isham but was sold in 1771 to Charles Watkins after which it became dispersed amongst freeholders.
The size of Clipston village at any one time is impossible to ascertain because the parish also included the now abandoned village of Nobold (NHLE 1017183) and both settlements were always recorded together. The village was presumably always large given there are four manors listed in 1086, three of which have a combined recorded population of 41, though the fourth, part of the royal manor of Rothwell, has no separate population figures. In 1377, 199 people over the age of 14, most of whom lived in Clipston, paid the Poll Tax. In 1674, 49 householders paid the Hearth Tax, all of whom were probably from Clipston, Nobold had by this time been abandoned; in addition two 'empty ruined town houses' and two empty cottages are recorded. Bridges said that 120 families lived in Clipston in the early 18th century (1791). In 1801 331 people lived in the parish.
The layout of the existing village and the surviving earthworks provides a tentative sequence for the settlements' evolution. It would appear that the earliest part of the village was the area around High Street and Church Lane, centred on the church which is Grade I listed (NHLE 1067033) and in which there is some evidence of a 12th century structure. The second phase of development is thought to have been a planned extension to the north-west, comprising three parallel streets with the village green in the south-east corner. Two of these streets survive as Chapel Lane and Harborough Road, and the third which lies equidistant between them is a broad hollow way defined by earthworks. Later expansion may have been in the area south west of Chapel Lane where there are extensive settlement remains apparently based on two hollow ways. Pegs Lane may be part of this development. Elsewhere in the village are small areas of old embanked closes some of which appear never to have been occupied by dwellings.
The western and central sections of the settlement, including the earthwork remains, were surveyed by the Royal Commission for Historic Monuments (1989).
Details
This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 01/09/2014.
PRINCIPAL ELEMENTS
The village is located on Boulder Clay on a mainly south facing slope, to the west of the River Ise, the river cutting through the south-east corner of the area of assessment. A natural spring on the western side of the village flows into the river south-east of Langdale House. The scheduled areas include fields to the north, east, south-east, south-west, west and north-west of the village of Clipston.
DESCRIPTION
The scheduled monument includes the earthworks and buried archaeological remains of the medieval village of Clipston comprising tofts, crofts, enclosures and areas of medieval ridge and furrow. These remains surround the currently inhabited core of Clipston village. It is not possible to say if the extensive remains represent the maximum expansion of the village at any one time or are the results of changes in location and layout spread over a long period. There are two main areas of the settlement which appear to have been occupied by dwellings. The first and most concentrated is at the western end of the village, centred around Pegs Lane, and the second is in the paddocks lying between Chapel Street and Harborough Road. These two areas are linked by earthworks and the remains of the medieval field system including ridge and furrow and embanked enclosures, both characteristic of the medieval rural economy. At the east end of the village enclosures defined by low banks and scarps are clearly evident to the east of Kelmarsh Road and Church lane, but few show sign of tofts suggesting they were never occupied by dwellings but were possibly for the purpose of stock enclosure.
At the western end of the village, particularly north, south and west of Pegs Lane and the properties along Pegs Lane, extensive settlement remains appear to be based on two hollow ways (sunken tracks). One extends from the bend in Pegs Lane, north of the property known as The Limes, running to the north-west where it joins the second hollow way running roughly north to south either side of Pegs Lane, beneath a property known as Cherrywell on the south side and adjacent to a large agricultural building on the north side. On both sides of these hollow ways are many small closes or crofts, some with identifiable house sites (tofts) within them. Both tofts and crofts are evident as low banks and scarps which in plan depict the crofts as rectangular enclosures measuring up to c.70m by 20m with the tofts c.20m by 30m adjacent to the hollow ways which themselves survive up to a depth of c.1.2m. To the west of Pegs Lane, further tofts and crofts are evident amongst other old embanked closes which do not appear to have been occupied by dwellings.
To the rear (north) of crofts on the north side of Pegs Lane a wide gulley, possibly a back lane, separates the crofts from the ridge and furrow to the north. This gulley aligns with a similar feature in the paddocks located between Chapel Lane and Harborough Road; at its eastern end it links with the main north to south-running hollow way which runs parallel to the aforementioned roads. Together these earthworks are believed to be part of the second phase of village expansion or change in layout of the village. This hollow way survives up to 1.5m deep. Again tofts and crofts abut the hollow way indicating the positions of former dwellings and east of Harborough Road further earthworks are evident adjacent to the existing road.
At the east end of the village the evidence is slightly different. Here enclosures defined by low banks and scarps are clearly evident to the east of Kelmarsh Road and Church Lane but few show signs of tofts suggesting they were never occupied by dwellings but were possibly for the purpose of stock enclosure, an important element in the economy of the village. There is evidence of some relatively recent (possibly late C20) ground disturbance at this end of the village. The river has been realigned and straightened in parts and the construction of a sewage works may also be related to some of the work carried out here.
The common fields of Clipston were apparently enclosed by an Act of Parliament in 1776. Some of the agricultural fields representing the most important element of the economy of the village have been destroyed but much of the layout is recoverable either on the ground or from aerial photographs (English Heritage, October 2013). Many of the earthworks are of considerable size, with ridges surviving up to 0.75m high in places. The remains are particularly well pronounced to the north, south-west and south-east of the existing settlement. The furlongs are often short and interlocked in response to the broken nature of the landscape, but there are also groups of end-on furlongs particularly to the south-east of the village. In the field to the north of the Sibbertoft Road and immediately west of Harborough Road at grid reference SP7139182544, a circular mound is evident both on the ground and on aerial photographs (English Heritage October 2014) and is understood to be the site of a windmill; the field was known as Mill Furlong in 1732.
EXTENT OF SCHEDULING
The extent of the scheduling is defined by two areas of protection. The first, the larger of the two includes an extensive area of tofts, crofts, hollow ways, ridge and furrow, closes which are understood to be animal enclosures, and the site of a windmill. The majority of the area of protection is defined by field boundaries; either fences, or hedges. The only exceptions being in the area leading from the corner of Pegs Lane and Gold Street where a new agricultural building with a small yard surrounding has been built but is not shown on Ordnance Survey maps. Here the area of protection lies 4m north of the northern edge of this yard then, at the western extent of the yard, the line of the area of protection turns south to follow the yard boundary fence, then turns west 5m south of the main east to west aligned hollow way. Here the line meets with another field boundary where it follows the boundaries, as shown on the attached map. Another exception lies at the northern end of the area of protection, north of the Sibbertoft Road around a small agricultural building and its yard. The building and a 10m buffer zone around the building and yard, where the ground has been disturbed, lies outside the area of protection but is not defined by field boundaries. Finally at the southern end of the same field, a wildlife pond has been dug which has disturbed any earthworks which may have related to the medieval settlement or its related field system. The upcast from the pond excavation has been spread over the adjacent field and much of the ridge and furrow has been obscured or removed in this area. For these reasons this area is not included in the scheduling; the northern boundary of this excluded area lies 15m north of the water course which runs east to west across this field between grid references SP7102182277 and SP7117982251.
The second area of protection lies at the eastern end of the village centred around grid reference SP7170981371. This area includes extensive, well preserved remains of ridge and furrow and earthwork enclosures which are understood to represent former stock enclosures. The western edge of this area is defined by the canalised water course but the remainder of this area of protection is defined by field boundaries in the form of hedges and/or fences. Where the area of protection skirts around a cottage and its associated courtyard the line follows a degraded hawthorn hedgerow on the eastern edge before returning to the line of the water course north of the cottage. A number of public footpaths cross this area.
There is considerable potential for undesignated heritage assets to survive within the currently occupied areas of Clipston medieval settlement. These may take the form of standing structures or buried deposits but are considered to be most appropriately managed through the National Planning Policy Framework (March 2012) and are not therefore included within the scheduled area.
A number of features are excluded from the scheduling, including: the ménege situated just south of Sibbertoft Road, all fences, gates and stiles, wooden stables and sheds, including all modern path and road surfaces, although the ground beneath all these features is included.
