A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



BOROUGH FEN 



The great Borough Fen is a tract of land about 3,000 

 acres in extent, of which 1961J are arable, 1,009! 

 pasture, and 22 wood. It has a light alluvial soil 

 upon clay with a lower stratum of rock in parts. A 

 bed of gravel crosses it in a north-westerly direction. 

 It is very sparsely populated (193 persons in 1901). 

 The most interesting feature is the celebrated decoy 

 farm on the north-west extremity of the common, 

 owned for many years by a family named Williams. 

 Eardley Grange is just within the boundary on the 

 north, and the tenants of this, with the inhabitants of 

 a few scattered cottages and farmhouses, constitute 

 the entire population. 



The Fen is extra-parochial ; it is included for 

 ecclesiastical and school purposes with Newborough, 

 but has a separate civil status. 



The Borough Fen anciently formed part of the 

 waste attached to the hundred of Nassaburgh, and 

 was thus part of the lordship of the abbey of Peter- 

 borough, being used as common for all the tenants 

 of the abbey in the soke of Peterborough. 



In I 541 the hundred of Nassaburgh, and with it 

 the lordship of the soil of the Borough Fen, was 

 granted to John, bishop of Peterborough,' but in 

 1576 Bishop Scambler surrendered it, with all its 



appurtenances, to Queen Elizabeth,' who almost 

 immediately granted it to William Cecil, Lord 

 Burghley, and his heirs.' The Marquises of Exeter, 

 as heirs of Lord Burghley, thus became owners of the 

 soil of the Borough Fen, and their right was vindi- 

 cated against the crown during the proceedings prior 

 to the enclosure of the Borough Fen,' which was 

 carried out by a commission appointed by Act of 

 Parliament in 1812, with powers to allot land to the 

 holders of common rights on the fen, and to sell part 

 to pay for the expenses of the commission and certain 

 draining operations, and to provide an endowment 

 for Newborough school and church.' The award 

 issued in 1822 was the origin of the present estates 

 on the soil of the fen. The Marquis of Exeter had 

 an allotment in lieu of his right to the soil, as well 

 as for common rights in respect of the land he 

 owns in the soke, and he is still the lord of the 

 soil as far as there can be said to be one, though 

 his land lies in the modern parish of Newborough, 

 cut off from the Borough Fen, and some years ago 

 the Eardley Wilmot family owned by allotment and 

 purchase the whole of the present Borough Fen 

 parish.' This estate is now in the hands of Mrs. 

 Culling Hanbury. 



CASTOR 



Castre (xi-xiv cent.). 



The parish of Castor, including the hamlets of 

 Ailsworth, Milton, Upton, and Sutton (the two last 

 since 1 831 constituted separate parishes), contains 

 7,110 acres, of which fifty are covered by water, 

 2,748^ arable land, 2,360^ pasture, and 750 wood- 

 land. 



It has in general a light gravelly soil upon lime- 

 stone, or, as at Milton Park and Upton, upon clay. 

 It contains some woodland and also arable and 

 grazing lands. The chief crops are barley, wheat, 

 mangolds, and turnips. Stone and gravel were 

 formerly worked to a small extent ; there are the 

 remains of two quarries on the west of Milton Park. 

 The inhabitants are now almost exclusively engaged 

 in agriculture. In the period of the Roman occupa- 

 tion of Britain, Castor, then known as Durobrivae, 

 was celebrated for its pottery.' 



In the eastern part between Milton Park and the 

 river stand two monoliths known as Robin Hood 

 and Little John, from some v.iguely-associated tradi- 

 tion of the country people, but which were probably 

 set up ' as evidences that carriages of stone from 

 Barnack pits to be conveyed by Gunwade Ferry to 

 St. Edmund's Bury might pass this way without 

 paying tolls." 



There is some evidence that about the middle of 

 the 7th century a nunnery was founded in Castor * 



by Kyncburga, a married daughter of Peada, king 

 of Mercia, who, accompanied by her sister Kyneswitha, 

 relinquished her royal surroundings to act as its 

 superior. The sisters, who were in after time can- 

 onized, were buried in Castor church, which is the 

 only church in England under their invocation. 

 Under the rule of Abbot Elsin in the llth century 

 their relics were translated to Peterborough and 

 placed in a shrine in the abbey church there, the 

 feast of their translation being observed by the monks 

 on 6 March.'" 



The Roman road called the Ermine Street enters 

 the parish on the south from Huntingdonshire a 

 little to the east of Castor station. It passes through 

 Ailsworth in a north-westerly direction, and from 

 the point where it crosses the road from Ailsworth 

 to Sutton becomes for about a mile the boundary 

 between the parishes of Upton and Sutton. 



Another Roman road, which deflects from the 

 Ermine Street near the Nene and Normangate field, 

 can be only indistinctly traced for the first two miles 

 of its course. It runs due north towards Lincoln- 

 shire, becoming named as the King Street about the 

 point at which it enters Helpston parish." Part of its 

 course is marked only by high green banks, which 

 under the enclosure award of 1898 may not be 

 ploughed up . There are traces of other highways 

 and of ancient dykes, while a ridge commemorates 



' Pat. 33 Hen. IV, pt. iii, m. 13. 



» y. C. H. Norrhanrs, i, 208. 



« Gunton, Hisiory of the Church of 

 Pcrtrboroughy 4. 



■• Birch, Carl. Sax. i, 22 ; Sparkc, 

 Rcriptores, 33. 



' Close, 19 Eliz. pt. xxi, m. 1. 



^ Ibid. m. 13. 



^ Borough Fen. End. Award. 



" Pmaie and Penonal Acn, 52 Geo. Ill, 

 cap. 143. See also ibid. 59 Geo. Ill, 

 cap. 77. 



^ Borough Fen End. Award. The his- 

 tory of the draining of the fen will be 

 dealt with in the Social and Economic 

 History of the county. 



" >4.S. Chron. (Rolls Set.); 221. 

 An ancient French metrical chronicle 



472 



said to have been among the Cotton 

 MSS., perhaps one of those destroyed 

 by fire, records this act of Elsin in the 

 following line : *Et de Castor Seint 

 Kyneburgh et Kineswith aporte.' Sparkc, 

 Scriptoreiy 241. 



^^ See F. C. H, Norf/iamsy i, 204 and 

 note 3. 



