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Archaeology in Blisworth Parish including Roman Finds
Roman finds are labelled RB (Romano-British, 40 to 500AD) in some cases referring to an isolated find and in others to a large number of scattered finds, eg. the area, in pink, around the Roman Villa/Temple on Gayton Hill. Other areas are labelled in accordance with the listed abbreviations at the head of the map. The great majority of features in pink correspond to the current HER County Hall records. For clarity, however, the highlighting of the Canal, the Railway and the turnpike have been removed. Records that have been modified here to conform to more recent assessments are very few, and as follows; the outline has been altered of the 19C ironstone mining in relation to the wooden offload canal point opposite Pond Bank, the line of the supposed RB road from Duston to Towcester has been replaced with a much more plausible line through Gayton Wilds and Tiffield (but please note, this unilateral change* is due to A. Marsh). Recent finds, all RB, have been inserted and labelled accordingly. An immediately noticeable feature of the map is the many fields marked "R&F". This stands for "ridge and furrow" and points out fields that still bear the undulations created by medieval ploughing in narrows strips (lands) where a family would perhaps have six such lands distributed around the village to combine, in a fair way, best with worst soil qualities. The strips were organised generally in 100 to 200 acre fields (Blisworth had three: Wood Field to the west, North or Nether field and East Field) that were assigned to a certain rotation of crops. Note that Blisworth's Nether Field borders onto Milton Malsor's South Field. It is hoped that further descriptive detail will be added to this article as it becomes available. A step in this direction is taken already; there are six hot spots (where the pointer converts to a pointing-finger) on the map. In these places a mouse click will open a "pop-up" window showing a larger scale map. If the pop-up does not show then you should reconfigure your browser to allow "pop-ups" for this session. There is subsidiary information provided in this pop-up format for the various IA (Iron-age, 800BC to 40AD) settlements, for example: (i). near the highest point of Gayton Hill, (ii). not far from Glebe Farm to the south-east, (iii). near Thorpewood Farm, (iv). in the Gayton Wilds area and (v). adjacent to Nunn Wood. The latter three sites are surprises, details are not included in the HER records. It must be borne in mind that our information on IA settlements is very scanty and likely to arise also in neighbouring parishes, for example, there are extensive enclosures to the north-east of Thorpewood Farm, in Courteenhall parish, that seem to indicate a considerable IA village to the east of present-day Blisworth. Owing to the stream which passed through Blisworth, and powered the water mill in medieval times, it seems more than likely that an IA settlement was made near our present day church. This is why there is one reference to 'see text' on the map. It is simply to point out that the Wake "homestead" and any EM, Saxon, RB or IA evidence for a pre-Wake settlement have unfortunately not yet been researched. However, please note the suggested features found in this area on one 1947 aerial photograph, see Appendix here. Another likely site, some would say, is the vicinity of where the Blisworth community established a "Green" (before the Stoke Road was built). With the aid of further hot spots, Roman activity is described for the villa near Nunn Wood and the temple at the highest point of Gayton Hill. The evidence for Roman activity near Glebe Farm is already described on this website. Note that certain records are also the subject of articles on this website; (i). the Saltway, this being a trackway running across the parish east-west, see The Saltway (also Saltway-East) and thought to be a Roman trading route (possibly IA also) originating at Droitwich, (ii). the cross parish Roman/Medieval roads (inc. Oxenfordwey) and (iii). the possible first attempted line in building the Canal Tunnel. A recent review of Roman settlements in the area has been given by Dr Young. For general interest, below are links to the monumental records for the Parishes of Blisworth, Gayton and Easton Neston. Click here for the Blisworth Record, the Gayton Record and the Easton Neston Record. These records in MSWord format will be forced to download separately to the folder of your choice. Please note that each new entry in these lists is headed with a discrete SMR Number which would be needed to follow up enquiries at "Monuments Records", County Hall, Northampton. * By way of clarification, the two recorded reference points (being red triangles in the map) on this proposed alignment are for road "metalling" discovered c 1960. Various inputs suggest that the Roman road to Towcester passed through Tiffield rather than very near Hulcote. The proposed crank near The Wilds farm uses the lines of partly extant paths. The story becomes complicated, and is still controversial, as one seeks a plausible route for the EM Oxenford Way (c800AD due perhaps to Offa of Mercia). The favoured route passes by Folly Farm and bisects Greens Norton common land and aligns with the Whittlewood Forest boundary. It also surely must have passed by Milton Ham and Blisworth Arm (before their existences, of course) following parish boundaries and therefore some of the alignment might coincide with the RB road mentioned above.
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