Chapter 14 Upton History and Buildings

There has been a settlement at Upton since at least the Roman period and possibly earlier. The general RCHM archaeological survey of 1968 identifies three enclosures in the parish of Upton. One is marked by well-defined and wide ditches that enclose a rectangular area of 1.5 acres at the point Ermine Street joins with the Roman road to Wansford. It is only visible from the air. There is a second enclosure of two acres immediately to the North West of the first.

North East of the Roman enclosures is a larger undated enclosure of 2.25 acres that could indicate earlier occupation. It is apparently divided into two equal parts by an internal ditch and there appear to be traces of a smaller enclosure to its North West. There is also an enclosure complex that crosses the boundary with Ailsworth parish.

A Roman villa was surveyed in the Autumn of 2002, prior to which, coins dating from AD330, and a 1st century bronze brooch were found [1]. The villa consists of a main block measuring 35 metres by 18 metres on NNE-SSW orientation. A large number of tesserae, hypocaust and roof tiles found at the site all suggest a large residential building. A few years ago parts of columns were found, and a Roman coffin was discovered on Model Farm land. It is now used for cultivating wall-flowers. A Saxon gilt brooch was also discovered at Upton, reported in Anglo-Saxon Cambridgeshire.

In addition to Roman enclosures there is evidence of extensive Medieval ridge and furrow cultivation to the North of Top Lodge where three interlocked furlongs meet along the course of a small stream. The open fields of the parish were enclosed in 1843.

The most historical buildings in the village are certainly the Manor Farm House and the church. West of the church there is a small thatched cottage, built in the 16th century and rebuilt from dereliction in the 1950s. An inscription on a dedication stone on the front of the cottage reads:

‘This Elizabeth I cottage then derelict restored 1957 by Harry Paten Chairman of The Fig 14a. Model Farm House built 1685. (Photo: J Tovey) Peterborough Society with the generous collaboration from The 10th Earl Fitzwilliam President of the Society.’

At the West end of Upton stands Model Farm, which dates from 1685. It has a hipped roof, oblong moulded chimney shafts and symmetrically placed mullion windows [2]. Other buildings include Glebe House, the thatched Keeper’s Cottage, and some 19th century houses, as well as newer council houses built in the early 1960s.

The manor represents, in effect, the early history of Upton other than the church. In essence the manor is defined by its geographical area, the Fig 14b. Model Farm barns: the old barns were extended in the 19th fact that there was a Lord of the Manor, and that it century by the addition of barns that look like engine sheds. (Photo: J Tovey)

143 had a Manorial Court. Upton Manor appears in the charter of Wulfhere of Peterborough in 664, but not in the Domesday Book. However, it could have been included in the Ailsworth/Castor entry.

In the 12th century it was held by Godwin of Upton, then by the Watervilles of Marholm. The Holding of Hugh de Waterville was confirmed to Peterborough Abbey by Richard I and Henry III in 1146 [3]. However, the Watervilles lost the manor for a time. In 1176 it was taken from Ralph de Waterville and handed to Robert de Neville in punishment for de Waterville’s participation in the 1174 rebellion against Henry II. Fig 14c. Top Lodge Farmhouse 1920s: presumably the people are the Harris family’s predecessors. The manor then passed by marriage to the de Dive family. Asceline de Waterville recovered the manor from Ralph de Nevill in 1190. One of her two daughters, Maud, married William de Dive. Hugh de Dive was holding land in Upton as late as the reign of Edward I (1272-1307). The second daughter of Asceline de Waterville, also named Asceline, married one of the Torpel family and took the manor at Upton as her dowry. It then passed by the marriage of her daughter to Ralph Camoys.

The demesne consisted of five virgates [4] and a quarter of arable land, with six acres of meadow, and eight and three quarters Fig 14d. Top Lodge Farm in 1950s: before the old barns were demolished. virgates worked by labourers [5].

Ralph Camoys’ son John then sold the manor illegally to Eleanor of Castille, Queen of Edward I, which led to the King granting custody of the lands to Peterborough Abbey at rent of £100 in 1290. In 1308 the manor was granted to Piers Gaveston by Edward II, who two years later, exchanged the manor and other lands for the county of Cornwall. Upton then passed to Edward’s nephew John Earl of Surrey and then on to other relations and members of the royal family including the Earls of Kent, and the wife of Edward the Black Prince, mother of Richard II, and Edward IV (1461-1470 & 1471-1483). Edward then granted the lands to his mother.

In 1492 Upton was granted to Elizabeth Fig 14e. Manor Farm in 1930s: note the gable end extension on the right. wife of Henry VII (1485-1509) and during

144 Fig 14f. Air photograph of Manor Farm in late 1950s. the reign of Henry VIII (1509-1547) formed part of the dower of four of his queens. The lands at Upton were afterwards granted to Sir Richard Wingfield in 1543-4 who built the manor house.

There was a second manor at Upton which never became a full manor there being no record of a manorial court. It was an amalgamation of two holdings, one of a manor at Southorpe and the other of land held by a Geoffrey of Upton. It was sold by John Stidolf to Robert Wingfield in 1562, thus uniting all Upton Manor.

There is not a lot left of the original manor building. What remains is a short length of the house with flat pointed mullion windows on the ground floor and square headed on the first floor. It is described thus in Bridges’ History of Northamptonshire published in 1796:

‘In the hall windows are the Wingfield’s, and other escutcheons of arms [6]. At the end are bow windows projecting very high, Fig 14g. Manor Farm 2004: All that is left of Upton Manor House; this house with balconies and stone work over them; started as the Manor House for the Wingfields, was then bought by the Dove and to the West is an embattled turret with family, all but the kitchen range demolished after 1750, the gable wing on the small windows, but the house has been East side demolished more recently, and the outbuildings replaced in the 1980s. (Photo: J Tovey)

145 pulled down many years except the meaner offices, which now serve for a farm house.’

Following a renewal of the grant between Robert Wingfield and James I in 1613- 14, the manor was sold to Sir William Dove in 1625. The Doves continued to hold the lands until 1750 – when it was sold to Lord Fitzwilliam – but borrowed on the property over the years. For example, an act of Parliament was passed in 1719 to allow Thomas Dove to raise £2000 on his estates at Upton, Sutton, Ailsworth and Castor for settlement of debts [7].

Since 1750 the manor has been owned by Milton estates and variously farmed by Fig 14h. Elizabethan Cottage. (Photo: J Tovey) tenants up to the present day. The Tebbutt family were the longest-serving Milton tenant farmers, occupying Manor Farm, Upton for most of the 18th and 19th centuries. Two other major buildings, Model Farm and Top Lodge, are also farms, worked by the Longfoots and the Harrises respectively. As such a rural hamlet, Upton has always had a small population. In the Compton Census of 1676 there were 58 Conformists listed in Upton. This figure has fluctuated but has not grown appreciably. Census figures from 1981 put the population at 80.

Despite this, Upton provided three bill Fig 14i. Keeper’s Cottage. (Photo: J Tovey) men and a constable with the residue of the town providing a harness for a man, according to the muster rolls of Nassaburgh Hundreds in 1536. The militia lists of 1762 show five men between the ages of 18 and 45, and the constable, John Sharman. These men were either servants or labourers.

The importance of farming to the rural community cannot be over emphasised. Perhaps one small illustration of this was reported in the Annals of Castor, a diary kept by John Hales, and published in the Peterborough Citizen in 1922. He reported that on 2nd October 1842: ‘John Culpin of Upton cut his throat with a razor but not so as to kill himself. He was removed to Peterborough on suspicion of stealing three sacks of wheat from Mr J Tebbutt’s [Manor Farm]. It Fig 14j. Model Cottages: Victorian farm workers’ cottages. (Photo: J Tovey) was found in his garden, and he was

146 Fig 14k. Glebe House, the former vicarage built in 1912. (Photo: J Tovey) sentenced to 15 years’ transportation.’

Apart from the Manor and farms, and the 16th century cottage, the other most significant building in Upton is Glebe House, which was built as a vicarage in 1912. Around the same time the village hall was constructed, consisting of a small green painted corrugated iron hut that still exists today.

The building has had various uses including youth clubs and a drill hall for the Upton and Sutton Home Guard, which included Upton men such as Ralph Hornsby and Arthur and Charlie Harris of Top Lodge Farm.

A number of council houses were built on Church Walk, Upton in the late 1950s and early 1960s between Glebe House and the ‘model cottages’. Some of these were built behind a row of three stone cottages which were then demolished. This marked the last development in the village, which remains an isolated rural hamlet.

John Howard John Howard was born and brought up in Castor the son of Jack and Kate McNaughton. He grew up with his brothers Walter and Sam in what is now Vine House on Church Hill. Educated at Castor School, King’s Peterborough and the University of Leicester,

Fig 14l. Village Hall. (Photo: J Tovey)

147 where he read English Literature, John earns a crust as a writer and journalist. After living in Canada and Spain for a time John now lives in Castor with wife Marta and son Charlie and daughter Alba.

Notes 1. Paul Middleton, Top Lodge Farm, Upton; Interim Report on Pre-excavation Survey, January 2003. 2. N Pevsner, Churches, 1968, p.359. 3. Hugh Candidus, The Peterborough Chronicle, ed W T Mellows, 1997, p5. 4. A virgate is a measurement of land – usually 30 acres according to the Oxford English Reference Dictionary. 5. Bridges, History of Northamptonshire, 1796, p507. 6. A list of the arms and escutheons can be found in K Gibson’s Antonine Itinerary, 1800, pp210-211. 7. Georgii C.6 (1719).

148 Fig 14m. Sketch of the row of three thatched stone cottages as remembered by Lyn Bell nee Hornsby. These cottages, with Fig 14n.The only known photograph (taken c 1912) of the front walls on the kerb-side, were demolished in about 1959, cottages. Until they were demolished in 1959, there was only ever after the council houses had been built behind them. When Lyn one tap with running water which they all shared. It was on the Bell was a child, Allen and Joyce Herbert lived in the left hand roadside, in front of the central cottage. The drain is still in the cottage, Lyn with her parents Wilf and Laura Hornsby in the road. centre cottage, and her uncle and aunt, Fred and Annie Hornsby, lived in the right hand one.

Fig 14n. The path across Church (Chapel) Close from the village of Upton to the church.

Fig14o. David Longfoot (in cab) loading fertilizer with Sam Jeffery in the yard at Model Farm Upton 2004 (Michael Longfoot behind the cab).

149 Upton Wood, but its dimensions and boundaries have not changed over 420 years (compare with the 1:50000 map). ‘Heyes Wode’ is now called Hayeswood Spinney. The track running from (Langdyke) runs along the bottom (Eastern) edge of ‘Cockeshoot Closse’, ‘Fur Clos’ and ‘Heyes Closse’. Note names pre-enclosure Open Fields. (Courtesy Fitzwilliam Archives left to right (North-South) in front of ‘Chapel Wode’ and’ Heyes is now called Barn Road, but was known then as ‘Sowthe Lane’. The Roman road, King’s Street or the Long Ditch Fig 14o. Map of Upton 1582, drawn by Toby Houghton. North is to the right map. Note dovecot (‘dufcot’) at top and windmill on left. ‘Chapel Wode’ now called North

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