Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Use British English Template:Infobox UK place
Helmdon is a village and civil parish about Template:Convert north of Brackley in West Northamptonshire, England. The village is on the River Tove, which is flanked by meadows that separate the village into two. The parish includes the hamlets of Astwell and Falcutt and covers more than Template:Convert.<ref name=RCHME>Template:Harvnb</ref> The 2011 Census recorded a parish population of 899.<ref name=ONS/>
The villages name means 'Helma's valley'. Alternatively, 'Helma (= helmet)' may be the name of a nearby hill. Early spellings also reflect confusion with Old English 'hamol' meaning, 'maimed'.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
ManorEdit
Helmdon's toponym is probably derived from Old English Helman denu "Helma's valley"; Helma is an unrecorded Old English masculine name.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In the reign of Edward the Confessor two Saxons, Alwin and Godwin, held the manor "freely", i.e. without a feudal overlord.<ref name=Adkins322>Template:Harvnb</ref> They were dispossessed after the Norman Conquest of England and the Domesday Book of 1086 records that Robert, Count of Mortain held a manor at "Elmedene".<ref name=Adkins322/> In the 12th century on William de Torewelle (Turville) held the manor of "Helmendene" of the fee of Leicester.Template:Sfn On both occasions the manor was assessed at four hides.<ref name=Adkins322/>Template:Sfn The toponym continued to evolve: in about 1340 it was recorded as Helmydene.<ref name=Parry/>
William's descendants continued as the lesser lords of Helmdon until the 16th century. In 1317 Nicholas de Turville granted 97Template:Fraction acres at Helmdon to his daughter Sarah and her husband Robert Lovett.<ref name=Mawson>Template:Harvnb</ref> In 1562 George Lovett sold Helmdon to Lancelot Wilton of Brackley, who 16 months later sold it on to Magdalen College, Oxford.<ref name=Mawson/> The college remained Helmdon's largest landowner until at least the 18th century, by which time Worcester College, Oxford also held a significant estate in the parish.<ref name=Mawson/>
Helmdon's main manor house, Overbury, seems to have been at the southern end of the village, south of the parish church.<ref name=RCHME/> Slight earthworks suggest the position of not only the manor house but also other houses and three former ponds<ref name=RCHME/> that may have been manorial fish ponds.
Church and chapelEdit
Church of EnglandEdit
The Church of England parish church of Saint Mary Magdalene is predominantly Decorated Gothic.<ref name=EH-church>Template:NHLE</ref> English Heritage dates the earliest building work to the 14th century<ref name=EH-church/> but local opinion holds the nave and aisles to be 13th century.<ref name=Parry>Template:Harvnb</ref><ref name=Spendlove>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> It is a Grade II* listed building.<ref name=EH-church/>
Until the English Reformation the church was dedicated to Saint Nicholas.<ref name=Spendlove/> The oldest parts are the nave and three-bay<ref name=Pevsner>Template:Harvnb</ref> south aisle, which may be early 13th-century.<ref name=Spendlove/> The south aisle includes a tomb recess<ref name=Pevsner/> with a Purbeck Marble slab and foliated cross.<ref name=EH-church/> The arcade of the north aisle is of a different style that suggests a later date, possibly late 13th-century.<ref name=Spendlove/> Authorities agree that the chancel is 14th-century.<ref name=EH-church/><ref name=Spendlove/> It has an ornately cusped, ogeed and crocketted piscina and three-bay sedilia,<ref name=EH-church/> plus a low-side window on each side.<ref name=Pevsner/>
The clerestory of the nave was added later, possibly in the 15th century.<ref name=EH-church/><ref name=Spendlove/> The clerestory's timber roof ties and purlins may be 15th-century originals.<ref name=EH-church/> The original west tower was probably 14th-century,<ref name=Spendlove/> but was rebuilt in 1823<ref name=EH-church/><ref name=Pevsner/> reusing elements of the original Decorated Gothic masonry.<ref name=Spendlove/> The church was restored in 1841, and again under the direction of EF Law in 1876.<ref name=EH-church/> During the restoration an Early English Gothic piscina was found under some pews in the north aisle, and was set in the wall near the north door.<ref name=Spendlove/>
Small sections of Medieval stained glass survive in the heads of some of the windows.<ref name=Pevsner/> One in the north-east window of the north aisle depicts a stonemason at work.<ref name=EH-church/> It gives his name, William Campiun, and has been dated to 1313.<ref name=Spendlove/> This suggests that he was a benefactor, at least paying for the window and probably contributing to the building of the north aisle.<ref name=Spendlove/> Such a medieval representation of a craftsman or tradesman is unusual, and one giving his name and so precisely datable is particularly rare.<ref name=Spendlove/> However, stone-quarrying was by then a significant industry in Helmdon, it supplied most or all of the stone for the church, and leading local masons would have had considerable economic standing.<ref name=Parry/>
Taxation records show that in 1291 the Hospital of St John Baptist and St John Evangelist, Northampton held the rectory of Helmdon.Template:Sfn It is now part of the parish of St Mary Magdalene, Helmdon with Stuchbury and Radstone,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> which in turn is part of the Benefice of the Astwell Group of Parishes.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
The tower has a ring of six bells. Henry II Bagley of Chacombe<ref name=DoveFounders>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> cast the fourth, fifth and tenor bells in 1679.<ref name=Spendlove/><ref name=DoveDetails>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> John Briant of Hertford<ref name=DoveFounders/> cast the treble bell in 1797.<ref name=DoveDetails/> The Taylor family of bellfounders of Loughborough cast the third bell in 1834, the second bell in 1855 and recast the fourth bell in 1890. Gillett & Johnston of Croydon<ref name=DoveFounders/> recast the fifth bell in 1951.<ref name=DoveDetails/> The church has also a Sanctus bell that was cast by an unidentified founder in about 1816.<ref name=DoveDetails/>
The old Rectory may have been 16th-century or earlier. In 1856 the then Rector, Rev. Charles Milman Mount, had it demolished and replaced with a new one (now Helmdon House).Template:Sfn In the porch of the 1856 rectory is the wooden lintel of a Tudor fireplace bearing a carved dragon, the year 1533 (or 35) and a set of initials.<ref name=Pevsner/>
BaptistEdit
Helmdon Baptist chapel in Wappenham Road opened in 1841.<ref name=Baptist>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 1953 a schoolroom was added.<ref name=Baptist/> The building became unsafe and was closed as a place of worship in 2004.<ref name=Baptist/> Baptists from Helmdon now worship at Weston Baptist chapel,<ref name=Baptist/> about Template:Convert away.
Economic and social historyEdit
Building stoneEdit
Helmdon Stone is a pale limestone of the Middle Jurassic Taynton Limestone Formation.Template:Sfn It is a freestone, i.e. it can be sawn in any direction to make ashlar.<ref name=Parry/> The quarries were on the north side of the Tove Valley, on the low ridge just beyond the northern edge of the village.Template:Sfn There were either side of the minor roads to Weston and Sulgrave, extending about Template:Convert east–west from just east of the footpath to Weston Farm to the boundary of what became the course of the Great Central Main Line.Template:Sfn
Stone may have been quarried in the parish since the late 13th century.<ref name=Parry/> Finely-carved stone used to build the Eleanor Cross at Hardingstone (started 1291) and to face the west front of the priory church of Canons Ashby Priory resembles that from Helmdon.Template:Sfn In about 1340 Helmydene supplied stone to repair the Church of St James the Less, Sulgrave.<ref name=Parry/>
Helmdon stone gained fame in the late 17th century. For a century it was included in the building of some of the region's finest stately homes. The first was Stowe House, whose builders used Helmdon stone from 1677, and especially from 1710 to 1777.<ref name=Parry/> This was followed by Easton Neston House near Towcester, completed 1702; Blenheim Palace in the period 1705–10; and Woburn Abbey from 1749 to 1780.<ref name=Parry/> Helmdon may also have supplied stone to build Brackley Town Hall in 1705–06 and to remodel Canons Ashby House in 1708–10.<ref name=Parry/> In 1739 Helmdon supplied some of the stone for Shalstone House in Buckinghamshire.<ref name=Parry/>
Blenheim is Template:Convert from Helmdon, and most of its stone was supplied by much nearer quarries in Oxfordshire: either Burford and Taynton<ref name=Parry/> or Cornbury Park and Glympton.Template:Sfn Woburn is Template:Convert away and most of its stone was supplied by nearer quarries at Ketton and Totternhoe.<ref name=Parry/> The inclusion of Helmdon stone in these prestigious projects shows how highly it was regarded at the time.<ref name=Parry/> Early 18th-century writers praised it as some of the finest building stone in England.<ref name=Parry/> However, after 1780 Helmdon stone ceased to be of more than local importance.<ref name=Parry/>
LaceEdit
The trade of making lace by hand was a well-established cottage industry in the East Midlands by the late 16th century, and the earliest record of it in Helmdon dates from 1718.Template:Sfn Makers around Towcester and Buckingham had a reputation for the finest lace,Template:Sfn and although mechanised competition began with Heathcoat's bobbin net machine in 1808, quality lace-making by hand thrived for several more decades. Helmdon had lace-making schools that taught girls the trade from an early age.Template:Sfn Lace-making in the parish peaked in the middle of the 19th century, when the 1851 Census recorded that 94 women and girls — more than 30% of all Helmdon's female inhabitants — worked in the trade, and the youngest workers were under 10 years old.Template:Sfn Thereafter mechanical lace-making did reduce the market for hand-made lace. The 1891 Census recorded only six women in Helmdon employed in the trade, and only one of those was aged under 40.Template:Sfn
AgricultureEdit
Template:Infobox UK legislation Traces of traditional ridge and furrow ploughing survive in much of the parish, and particularly in the south.<ref name=RCHME/> They are evidence of the open field system of farming that prevailed in the parish until 1758, when Parliament passed an inclosure act for Helmdon, the Template:Visible anchor (31 Geo. 2. c. 33 Template:Small).<ref name=RCHME/>
LeisureEdit
A few 17th-century records name Helmdon victuallers in 1630, 1673 and 1692, but none says where there alehouses were or what they were called.Template:Sfn Hemdon's earliest public house to be recorded by name was the Cross in Cross Lane.Template:Sfn It was built late in the 17th century,<ref name=EH-Cross>Template:NHLE</ref> and takes its name from the Cross family that ran it from then until late in the 18th century.<ref name=Harwood-Cross>Template:Harv</ref> Early in the 19th century Hopcroft and Norris's brewery in Brackley acquired it as a tied house.<ref name=Harwood-Cross/> The Cross closed on 15 August 1914,<ref name=Harwood-Cross/> just a fortnight after the outbreak of the First World War. It is now a private house called the Old Cross.<ref name=EH-Cross/>
Publicans of the Cross included James Campin (in 1884–1909) and Edward Campin (in 1913),<ref name=EH-Cross/> who share the same local surname as the stonemason William Campiun commemorated in the parish church in 1313. The last Campin in Helmdon died in 1969.<ref name=Spendlove/>
The Chequers opposite the parish school was trading by 1758 and possibly much earlier.<ref name=Harwood-Chequers>Template:Harv</ref> In 1872 it was taken over by Hopcroft and Norris, which in 1945 merged with the Chesham Brewery to form the Chesham and Brackley Brewery.<ref name=Harwood-Chequers/> By 1960 it had passed to Phipps Northampton Brewery Company, which in 1970 sold it to Charles Wells Ltd of Bedford.<ref name=Harwood-Chequers/> It was closed in 1992, demolished and replaced by four new houses.<ref name=Harwood-Chequers/>
The King William IV was trading by 1841,<ref name=Harwood-Bell>Template:Harv</ref> just four years after the death of its namesake. In about 1884 it became a tied house of the Leamington Brewery Company and its name was changed to The Bell.<ref name=Harwood-Bell/> After 1934 a dance hall with a sprung floor was built behind the pub.<ref name=Harwood-Bell/> Also in the middle of the 20th century the Bell diversified as a filling station, with a single hand-operated petrol pump outside.<ref name=Harwood-Bell/> The dance hall was demolished and replaced with a bungalow before 1970 but the petrol pump remained well into the 1970s.<ref name=Harwood-Bell/> The Bell continues to trade today.<ref name=TheBell>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
The Cock and Magpie in Wappenham Road opposite the Baptist chapel was trading by 1861.<ref name=Harwood-Magpie>Template:Harv</ref> Its name was later shortened to the Magpie.<ref name=Harwood-Magpie/> When the Great Central Main Line was being built in the second half of the 1890s, the landlord added a wooden building behind the pub in which he lodged some of the navvies.<ref name=Harwood-Magpie/> The Magpie closed down in 1909,<ref name=Harwood-Magpie/> giving it the shortest trading life of Helmdon's four known pubs. It is now a private house, Magpie Cottage.<ref name=Harwood-Magpie/>
A Charles Fairbrother had the Reading Room built in 1887 as a men's meeting place as an alternative to the pubs.<ref name=Folgham>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Newspapers and magazines were donated and until 1930 a small annual subscription was charged.<ref name=Folgham/> Women were not admitted until 1921, when the local Women's Institute started meeting there.<ref name=Folgham/> It was run by the parish Rector and churchwardens until the 1970s, when it was transferred to the parish council.<ref name=Folgham/> Throughout its history the Reading Room has been the meeting place of many of Helmdon's activities, serving in effect as the village hall.<ref name=Folgham/>
SchoolEdit
Helmdon School was planned in 1852 as a National School and built and opened in 1853 on land given by Worcester College, Oxford.<ref name=Ipgrave>Template:Harvnb</ref> The original building included a house for the schoolmaster, which was sold as a private house in 1970.<ref name=Ipgrave/> In 1872 more land was acquired and an additional classroom was built.<ref name=Ipgrave/>
After Parliament passed the Elementary Education Act 1870, control of the school was transferred from the Church of England parish to the local School Board.<ref name=Ipgrave/> The school was refurbished in 1933 and extended in 1975.<ref name=Ipgrave/> It is now a primary school.<ref name=School>Helmdon Primary School</ref>
RailwaysEdit
In 1872 the Northampton and Banbury Junction Railway (from 1910 part of the Stratford-upon-Avon and Midland Junction Railway (SMJR)) was opened between Template:Rws and Template:Rws. It passed roughly east–west along the Tove Valley through the middle of the village, where its Helmdon station was opened.
In the 1890s a civil engineering contractor, Walter Scott and Company of Newcastle upon Tyne, built the section of the Great Central Main Line (GCML) between Template:Rws and Template:Rws.Template:Sfn From 1894 to 1898 Scott had a construction yard in the Tove Valley at Helmdon with a network of sidings connected to the SMJR.<ref name=BoydHope>Template:Harvnb</ref> It was next to where the company built Helmdon Viaduct, a nine-arch structure of Staffordshire blue brick that carried the GCML main line across the valley.<ref name=BoydHope/>
The main line linked northern England with Template:Rws and opened in 1899. It ran roughly north–south through the parish, passing just west of the village. There the Great Central Railway (GCR) opened its own Template:Rws station, causing some confusion with the SMJR's existing Helmdon station. In the 1920s Sulgrave Manor House, about Template:Convert from Helmdon, was restored as a museum to the family of George Washington, whose ancestors held that manor from 1540 to 1659.<ref>Template:NHLE</ref> In response the London and North Eastern Railway, which had succeeded the GCR in 1923, renamed its main line station "Helmdon for Sulgrave" from 1928.
British Railways closed the SMJR station and line in 1951, the GCML main line station in 1963 and the main line in 1966. Helmdon Viaduct survives.
ShopsEdit
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries Helmdon a dozen or more shops.<ref name=Vicars>Template:Harvnb Template:Dead link</ref> By the 1930s they included a post office, three grocers, a butcher, an egg-dealer, a fruiterer, a baker, a newsagent, a tailor and a shoe repairer.<ref name=Vicars/> Other local tradesmen included two coal merchants, a wheelwright who also made coffins, a builder who was also the parish undertaker, and even a maker of boot polish.<ref name=Vicars/> Butchers from Brackley and Syresham delivered to customers in Helmdon, and some Helmdon traders sold their goods beyond the parish.<ref name=Vicars/> Helmdon's last village shop was Bungalow Stores in Station Road,<ref name=Vicars/> which closed in 2011.Template:Citation needed
AmenitiesEdit
The Bell continues to trade as both a pub and an hotel.<ref name=TheBell/> Helmdon has a nursery school for children aged 2–4 years<ref>Helmdon Acorns Pre-School</ref> as well as the primary school for children aged 4–11 years.<ref name=School/> There are more than 30 community groups.<ref>Group Directory</ref> The village has two ponds, and a public park with play equipment and benches. Helmdon won the Northamptonshire Village of the Year competition in 1969, 1996, 1999, 2002 and 2011.Template:Citation needed
ReferencesEdit
SourcesEdit
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