JOURNAL OF THE NORTHAMPTONSHIRE RECORD SOCIETY WOOTON HALL PARK, NORTHAMPTON NN4 8BQ ORTHAMPTONSHIRE CONTENTS PAST AND PRESENT Page N Number 59 (2006) Notes and News . 5 Aynho Fields, open and enclosed David Hall . 7 Dame Alice Owen and Her Heirs at Cransley Sir Clive Rose . 23 Our Cockhills in Elkington Elizabeth Fell . 32 A Northamptonshire Lady of Quality in the Middle of the Nineteenth Century: The Journals of Caroline Harriet Stopford of Drayton House Bruce Bailey . 43 Northamptonshire’s first old age pensioners John Adams . 54 A Tale of Old Labour: Alderman Frank Lee of Northampton R. L. Greenall . 67 The importance of Northamptonshire’s reservoirs Jack Rodney Laundon . 73 Book Reviews . 83 Obituaries . 92 £3.00 Cover illustration: Number 59 2006 £3.00 Cransley Hall 2006 (D. N. Hall) AND PRESENT PAST NORTHAMPTONSHIRE Northamptonshire Record Society NORTHAMPTONSHIRE PAST AND PRESENT 2006 Number 59 CONTENTS Page Notes and News . 5 Aynho Fields, open and enclosed . 7 David Hall Dame Alice Owen and Her Heirs at Cransley . 23 Sir Clive Rose Our Cockhills in Elkington . 32 Elizabeth Fell A Northamptonshire Lady of Quality in the Middle of the Nineteenth Century: The Journals of Caroline Harriet Stopford of Drayton House . 43 Bruce Bailey Northamptonshire’s first old age pensioners . 54 John Adams A Tale of Old Labour: Alderman Frank Lee of Northampton . 67 R. L. Greenall The importance of Northamptonshire’s reservoirs . 73 Jack Rodney Laundon Book Reviews . 83 Obituaries . 92 Index . 93 All communications regarding articles in this and future issues should be addressed to David Hall, the Hon. Editor, Northamptonshire Record Society, Wootton Hall Park, Northampton, NN4 8BQ. Published by the Northamptonshire Record Society Number 59 ISSN 01490 9131 Typeset by John Hardaker, Wollaston, Northants and printed by Alden Press, Oxford OX2 0EF THE NORTHAMPTONSHIRE RECORD SOCIETY (FOUNDED IN 1920) WOOTTON HALL PARK, NORTHAMPTON NN4 8BQ President: Sir Hereward Wake, Bart., M.C., D.L. NOTES AND NEWS Last year we reported on the uncertain status of some of the family collections held in the Record Office. The current update (September) is that the Cartwright of Aynho collection is still residing at the Record Office for the time being, £100,000, a third of the asking price having been raised. Some of this funding has come from private sources, mainly from the Aynho region. An appeal is currently under way, as you can see from the details in the enclosed leaflet, and further donations are sought. As noted previously, the collection is wide-ranging and, apart from political and personal family material, the records involve a large number of parishes. At its full extent the core of the estate had most, or significant parts, of Aynho, Hinton-in-the-Hedges, Steane, Charlton and Newbottle, King’s Sutton and Astrop, and in Oxfordshire, Deddington and its members of Clifton and Hempton. Farther away were farms in Stuchbury, Bugbrooke and Watford. I went through the card-list of the collection during last winter and offer an article below that gives some idea of its scope (in terms of my own interests only!) * * * * * The Record Society has recently been establishing closer links with the history department of Northampton University, via Professor Jon Stobart. There are courses offering an MA in the subjects ‘ War and Society’ and ‘Social and Cultural History’ with a variety of interesting modules. For more information contact either John Stobart or Ian Beckett. * * * * * Work on new volumes of the Victoria County History continues under the leadership of the North- amptonshire VCH Trust. Volume V, the Cleley Hundred, is now available on the web (www.british- history.ac.uk). This is extremely useful, even if you already possess a nice red copy, as the text can be electronically searched. Volume VI, the industrial history, is almost ready for publication and work on Volume VII is well advanced. It deals with Corby parish and the New Town with some of the adjacent villages, and will also be produced in a short illustrated paperback version. As well as the work of the VCH Trust, with the ultimate completion of every village history, there seems to me to be scope for a single countywide volume following on from Bridges’ History with its 1720 information taking it up to 1945 (or even 2000). There are many families and estates that have come and gone during that time, now largely forgotten. The article on Caroline Stopford of Drayton by Bruce Bailey, below, touches upon some of them – the lords of Lyveden and Lilford. Nearby Sudborough had the Duke of Cleveland as the major landholder in 1839. A county view of the economic and social data provided by enclosure and tithe awards would be useful, along with information on the break-up of so many landed estates in the 1920s and 1930s. There is scope for many graphs and maps. A nice twenty- year project for a keen post-doctoral historian! * * * * * It is with regret that we have to report the Record Office is no longer open to the public on Mondays. Apart from any inconvenience to those members wishing to study on a Monday, it affects the Society’s Office arrangements, since Monday was one of the days when the secretaries were on duty. It has yet to be decided on which days the Office will be open under the new arrangements, depending on the availability of Leslie and Jean and the views of members at the next Council Meeting. It will be announced at the Autumn Meeting and placed on the Record Society’s website. The reason for the Record Office four-day week is the reduction of staff imposed by the County Council, made in an attempt to reduce budget deficits. Far more drastic has been the disbanding of the Historic Built Environment Team so that Northamptonshire is unique in having no county archaeologist, 6 northamptonshire past and present and this at a time when large scale ‘development’ is thrust upon it. The good news it that three posts survive, the Sites and Monuments Record, the Portable Antiquities Scheme, and a new post responsible for Northamptonshire County Council historic assets (such as the recently purchased Chester Farm). These three officers are under the direction of the County Archivist as part of the Community Services Directorate. Regarding the archaeological threat to development, there is a county Growth Management Team that will provide archaeological input to ‘new settlement’ as well as for planning applications relating to minerals and waste. Otherwise archaeological, architectural and historic matters across the county are now entirely in the hands of the District and Borough councils. As you will know, their attitudes vary and I urge any of you who serve on parish or district councils to press for the proper preservation or recording of the ‘historic environment’. * * * * * My thanks are due to reviewers and to Jean Hall and Leslie Skelton for their help with NPP production. Don’t forget to keep up to date with Society news and events available on the Record Society Website at www. northamptonshirerecordsociety.org.uk. David Hall Notes on contributors John Adams lives in Great Oakley and is an Affiliated Lecturer in the Faculty of Biology, University of Cambridge. Bruce Bailey FSA, is a freelance lecturer and architectural historian, and is Curator at Drayton House. He is a Council Member of the Northamptonshire Record Society. Elizabeth Fell is a retired Chartered Physiotherapist whose interest in the history of the landscape followed a move to live in Elkington parish. R. L. Greenall, from 1965 to 1996, was employed in the Department of Adult Education, University of Leicester, much of it as warden of the University Centre in Northampton. He is the author of several books on the county’s history, the most recent being a History of Kettering. Formerly editor of this journal, currently he is the hon. general editor of the Record Society’s main series of publications. David Hall is the editor of Northamptonshire Past and Present. Jack Rodney Laundon was born at Kettering in 1934. He worked as a botanist and editor at the Natural History Museum in London 1952 until 1990. In 1998 he bought a new house at Kettering from which to study the landscape history and architecture of his native county. Sir Clive Rose spent 34 years in the Diplomatic Service following five years in the army in World War II. He has written two books on East-West relations during the Cold War, and a family history, The Unending Quest. It was when researching the latter that he ‘discovered’ his ancestor, Alice Owen. Aynho Fields, open and enclosed DAVID HALL Aynho lies at the southern extremity of the county, being topographically an extension of the Cotswolds forming the Northamptonshire scarp. Its history is very well recorded in the estate records of the Cartwright family, resident from 1615 until the 1950s. There are also estate records held by Magdalen College, Oxford, which acquired the small Hospital of St James and St John with its lands and evidences, being one of the College founding appropriations made by William Wainflete, Bishop of Winchester, in 1463-4.1 The village history, Aynho, published by Nicholas Cooper in 19842 is an excellent general account, based mainly on the Cartwright records (although unfortunately devoid of precise references to the documents used). Baker gives details of the manorial descent and pedigrees of the lordly families.3 The field systems of Aynho, both when open and in the way that they were enclosed in three separate stages, are remarkably complex, but can be understood from the detailed documents that describe them. A plan of ridge and furrow remains made by archaeological survey was published in 1997.4 This is incomplete in the east and south of the township where light soils preserved no earthworks of headlands.