Whittlewood 2a: Attrition and Survival of Vernacular Houses in Potterspury, Northants

English Heritage summaries. 2006/2007

A quarter of all the houses that existed in 1727 in the Northamptonshire village of Potterspury survive today.  This has been demonstrated from documentary evidence and buildings survey work. The starting point is a map of 1727, which shows each building in detail in respect of the number of storeys and bays and the positions of windows, doors and chimneys.  The house sketches are compared with the existing surviving houses and show strong agreement on detail.  Supplementing the map with other contemporary documents, such as court and suit rolls from Grafton archives at Northamptonshire Record Office, a complete picture of the 1727 village has been reconstructed.  Over eighty percent of the houses were of two or three bays, of which two thirds were single storey.  The larger houses were either farmhouses or inns.  Documentary evidence and survey strongly suggests that all houses were built of the local rubble limestone with thatched roofs by 1727.  Following this picture through the later documentary sources and examining the nature of surviving and lost buildings, has enabled a full history of each house to be established.  For the period 1727 to 1910 the paper identifies the main periods of loss, the factors leading to loss and the nature of new and replacement houses.  A close link has been demonstrated between the pattern of building and the agricultural fortunes of the dominant estate, that of the Duke of Grafton.

This page was published on 23/09/2008