A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



BROUGHTON 



Bructon, Burtone, Bruton (xi cent.); Brocton 

 (xiii cent.). 



Broughton lies to the south of Cransley, and has 

 Kettering to the east of it, its northern boundary for 

 some distance being the Northampton to Kettering 

 road. The village, which is large, lies where this road 

 bends to run south through the parish, and is situated 

 between it and another main road connected here by 

 smaller streets. It contains several good houses, and 

 lies at a height of about 425 ft., the ground falling to 

 about 325 ft. at the southern extremity of the parish. 



Saint Andrew's Church lies at the eastern end of the 

 southernmost of the above-mentioned connecting roads. 



West of the church is a large two-storied stone house 

 known as 'The Gables', with mullioned windows, 

 thatched roof, and main end gables and two smaller 

 intermediate ones on the principal, or north, front: a 

 panel in the eastern gable is inscribed 'w. f., 1685'. 

 On the south side of the main road is a 17th-century 

 house of ironstone which though altered and in part 

 mutilated for road-widening purposes retains much of 

 its original picturesqueness: it is of two main stories, 

 with mullioned windows and high-pitched thatched 

 roof containing attics lighted by windows in the end 

 gables and there is a smaller gable on the west front 

 at the angle of the building. Near the west end of the 

 High Street is a modernized two-story house with 

 thatched roof and panel in the end gable inscribed 

 't''e, 1705'. 



The school was built in 1870, and rebuilt in 1892 

 for 135 children. The churchyard was enlarged in 

 i860; and in 1900 a cemetery of an acre was formed 

 and is under the control of the parish council. 



The population is mainly collected in the village, 

 which has near it on the north-west Churchill Spinney 

 and an old quarry. Away by itself at the eastern side 

 of the parish is Broughton Lodge, a fine old house. 

 When Newton House (in Nev\1on-in-the-Willows) was 

 demolished, about 1 800, portions of the material were 

 used in this house, then a farm-house, where many years 

 before the last of the Newton Treshams had lived.' 

 Near by is Clarke's Lodge. 



The Union Dissenting chapel was built in 1 8 5 1 for 

 various denominations. 



A disastrous fire visited Broughton in 1 701, when 

 briefs were issued to assist in reconstruction.^ The 

 church fortunately escaped. Its rectors have been men 

 of note. They include: Robert Bolton (1610-1631), 

 the father of Dr. Samuel Bolton who was chaplain to 

 Charles II, 'a grave and comely person' — according to 

 Fuller — 'an authoritative preacher who majestically 

 became the pulpit'; and the wise and witty Royalist 

 divine, Joseph Bentham (1632— 167 1), who wrote in 

 1657 'Two Breife but Useful! Treatises: the one 

 touching the office and quality of the Ministry of 

 the Gospel: the other of the Nature and Accidents 



of Mixt Dancing'. After much suffering during the 

 Civil Wars, he came back to his old parish at the 

 Restoration, where he died in 1671, as an inscription 

 on a stone within the altar rails shows. He left in his 

 will £40 to be distributed annually for ever among the 

 poor at Broughton on the happy day of His Majesty's 

 restoration, and 10;. to be given yearly in the church 

 porch, at Weekley, to such poor persons as should come 

 to church on the 29th of May. 



The population, which was 374 in 1801, in 1931 

 was 1,207.3 The parish has an area of 1,742 acres. 

 Part of the soil is of a stiff, clayey nature, and of the 

 subsoil ironstone. The chief crops grown are wheat, 

 beans, and sugar-beet. 



One and a half hides of socland in Brough- 

 MANOR ton were valued in the Domesday Survey 

 with a hide in Cransley and 3 virgates in 

 Hannington among the Countess Judith's land,* and 

 descended with her other lands in the honor of 

 Huntingdon. 



Robert Bruce in 1284 held a fee in BROUGHTON 

 of the king in chief, this fee being held under him by 

 Walter de Huntecumbe, of 

 Walter by Geoffrey de Leuknor, 

 and of Geoffrey by William de 

 St. German, 5 the under-tenant by 

 whose family it was held for 

 several centuries. In 1378 this 

 fee was among those lately held 

 of Edward Prince of Wales by 

 Simon Simeon in succession to 

 Geoffrey Leuknor.* The over- 

 lordship of the manor was re- 

 turned in 1485 as unknown,'' but 

 was ascribed in i 522 to Rothwell 

 Manor,* which was at the time in the hands of Sir 

 William Parr by a grant for 40 years, after the attainder 

 of Edward Duke of Buckingham.' It was returned as 

 held of the king as of his manor of Rothwell in 161 5.'° 

 Apparently the intermediate lordships had lapsed during 

 the I 5th century and the property had been combined 

 with the half hide in Broughton which at the time of 

 the Domesday Survey was a member of the royal manor 

 of Rothwell." 



The first St. German under-tenant in Broughton 

 recorded was Robert, who held 2 carucates there in 

 1 229.'^ William de St. German was lord of Broughton 

 in I252'3 and was dealing with land there in 1260. '♦ 

 William de St. German, presumably identical with the 

 coroner for the county of Northampton," claimed view 

 of frankpledge in Broughton in 1276,'* and, as already 

 stated, was holding the manor in 1284. A William de 

 St. German was holding Broughton in 13 16,'' and in 

 1329 he or a namesake with his wife Margaret settled 

 the manor upon themselves and their heirs;'* later in 

 the same year he paid a fine of half a mark to recover 



Bruce. Or a saltire and 

 a chief gules ivith a leo- 

 pard or in the chief 



' N. (^ Q. Norlhants. i (1905-7), 166. 



2 Ibid, i (1884-5), 32- 



3 The Poll Bks. show that in 1 705 there 

 were 48 freeholders, in 1 8 3 1 there were 14. 



* F.C.H. Northants. i, 351. 



5 Feud. Aids, iv, 2. 



' Chan. Inq. p.m. 2 Ric. II (ist nos.), 



57- 



' Ca!. Inq. p.m. Hen. VII, i, 13. 



^ Chan. Inq. p.m. (Ser. 2), xxxviii, 29. 



» L. and P. Hen. VIII, iii, 2482 (10). 



'"> Chan. Inq. p.m. (Ser. 2), cccilvii, 19. 



" V.C.H. Northants. i, 306. View of 

 frankpledge in Broughton was held in 1306 

 as appurtenant to Rothwell by Joan daugh- 

 ter of Edward I and widow of the Earl of 

 Gloucester: Cal. Inq. p.m. iv, p. 317. 



" Cal. Close, 1227-31, p. 246. 



^3 Assize R. 615, m. 37. 



" Feet of F. Northants. 44 Hen. Ill, 



no. 736. A William St. German, the king's 

 serjeant-at-arms, died in 1265: Cal. Pat. 

 1258-66, p. 513. Another William was 

 esquire to the Earl of Gloucester in 1267 : 

 ibid. 1266-72, p. 87. 



'5 Cal. Close, 1272-9, p. 276. 



'* Hund. R. (Rec. Com.), ii, 12. 



" Feud. Aids, iv, 21. 



'8 Feet of F. Northants. 3 Edw. Ill, 

 no. 40. 



158 



