Summary
Earthworks and buried archaeological deposits of the abandoned medieval village of Kirby.
Reasons for Designation
The medieval village site at Kirby Grounds, Woodend, Northamptonshire, is scheduled for the following principal reasons:
* Survival: for the exceptional earthworks and waterlogged deposits depicting the form and plan of the settlement and fish pond;
* 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;
* Diversity: for the range and complexity of features such as building platforms, crofts, trackways and the fish pond 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 and status of its inhabitants.
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
The 1982 survey of Northamptonshire by the Royal Commission on the Historic Monuments of England (RCHME) and the Northamptonshire Historic Environment Record (HER) summarise the history of the former village of Kirby, and documents the archaeological evidence for its interpretation and survival. The use of aerial photographs (English Heritage, October 2013) further enhances our understanding of the site and its extent.
Kirby is not mentioned by name in Domesday Book of 1086, but the RCHME Survey suggests that it was recorded as a small manor under Blakesley with a population of two. This manor was granted to the Knights Hospitallers in 1194. The village is first mentioned in 1316 and in 1361 the Hospitallers’ manor was described as ‘ 1 messuage and 1 carucate in Kirby’. In 1487 the Hospitaller’s tenant demolished five houses and enclosed and converted 300 acres of land to pasture. In 1547 1000 sheep were being grazed here. Bridges noted that in 1720 there was only one house left at Kirby, probably the predecessor of Hootens Farm. There has been much recent improvement to the land surrounding the site of the village. In 1999 archaeological evaluation trenches were excavated on the site of an outbuilding adjacent to the farmhouse. Four sherds of medieval pottery dating to the C10-C16 were found.
Details
PRINCIPAL ELEMENTS
The monument includes the earthworks and buried archaeological deposits of the abandoned medieval village of Kirby, also known as Kirby Grounds, on a limestone and clay plateau lying at approximately 120m above sea level. At the time of the assessment (2013) the monument is under permanent pasture.
DESCRIPTION
The principal feature of the site is a broad hollow way approximately 9m wide and 200m in length, leading north-eastwards from the farmhouse, the bank of which survives to a maximum of 1.5m high. The hollow way divides at the north-east end and presumably once continued into the fields beyond.
This hollow way was the main street of the village and is lined on either side by pronounced earthworks of tofts and crofts. At the time of the RCHME survey the stone rubble walls of two and possibly three crofts surrounding house platforms were observed, indicating the good archaeological potential of the site. At the north-east end three parallel ditched features in an area 55m wide may represent drainage channels whilst at the north-west corner is a slight triangular depression interpreted as a fish pond. The pond measures approximately 53m long and 26m at its widest point, and is associated with channels to the east and west.
EXTENT OF SCHEDULING
The monument is located in a field defined by post and rail fences and hedgerows to the north of Hootens farmhouse, centred at SP63514955. All fences and posts are excluded from the monument, although the ground beneath them is included. The south-west boundary of the scheduled area diverts eastwards from the field's edge to exclude a modern, regularly dredged, large pond and the surrounding area before returning southwards to meet the rear boundary of the farmhouse garden. This part of the field has been disturbed by drainage and grading works as part of the steading’s current water management system, compromising the survival of archaeological deposits.
