BRACKLEY HERITAGE TRAIL
TOWN CENTRE CONSERVATION AREA SELF-GUIDED TOUR
Conservation Areas were introduced in 1967 with the aim of preserving or enhancing areas of architectural or historic interest. Buildings within conservation areas are subject to tighter planning rules to ensure that the heritage and character of the area can be protected. Brackley has two Conservation Areas. The first was originally designated in 1971. A review in 1998 made the area bigger and also created a separate Conservation Area to cover Old Town.
Start: 1. Old Fire Station & Park
The Old Fire Station was built in 1887. It was the home of the Fire Service of Brackley until they moved to new premises on the Oxford Road. It was owned by the National Trust who sold it to the Town Council in 2013. The council operates one side as community rooms, available for hire and one side as a commercial venture – currently the Old Fire Station CafĂ©.
The Park was originally part of the land owned by the Egerton Family– the lords of the manor and holders of titles such as the Viscountcy of Brackley, the Earldom of Ellesmere and Earldom and Dukedom of Bridgewater – VERY confusing. The Egertons’ other estates included New Hall, Worsley (near heavily-industrialised Salford – cotton, coal, brickmaking) and Stetchworth Park (near Newmarket) as well as Brackley. The first Viscount Brackley, Sir Thomas Egerton, was a high-ranking lawyer and judge during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I. The site of Winchester House School, on the other side of the main road, was given to the Egertons by George III as a reward for canal-building in Lancashire. It was redeveloped by the 3rd Earl of Ellesmere in 1870, who used it as a hunting lodge and weekend retreat ! The Ellesmeres auctioned off their assets in 1915 to pay death duties when the 3rd Earl died, the park was due to be sold as a building plot. Luckily the park did not sell and it eventually became owned by a Mr Collingham who lived in London but had once been a resident of Brackley. He gave the park to the National Trust in 1928 and the National Trust entrusted its care and management to the Brackley Corporation (the Town Council of its day). The Town Council signed a new 99 year lease on the park in 2013. The manor house became a school in 1922. By the way, we needn’t feel too sorry for the Egertons – they still held on to Mertoun House in Scotland, Stetchworth Park and Bridgewater House in St James’s, London. Note the three Wellingtonia (Giant Redwoods) in the park – examples were also planted by Queen Victoria at the Worsley estate in 1857 in memory of the first Duke of Wellington.
Walk south past the Plough and cross the Buckingham Road
2.Master’s Lodgings – This building was the scene of a murder in 1740. It is called Master’s Lodgings now as although now it is a private residence, it has been used as the Master’s house and a boarding school for many years. However in 1740 it was called Northgate House and the Reverend Dr Littleton Burton lived here. One of his servants, Henry Kerwood, was sacked for being ‘saucy’ to the Reverend, but Henry wasn’t happy. Instead of leaving, he went back to work with his mates. When he was discovered, the Reverend struck him with a stick and again told him to leave. Henry was so enraged that he picked up a pitchfork and hit the Reverend on the head. The Reverend died, but Henry was never caught, despite a reward of 10 guineas being offered for his capture.
Walk down the Hill to the chapel
3. Magdalen College Chapel – This is Magdalen College School Chapel; the chapel of St John – the oldest school chapel still in use in England. The chapel is now only used by the school, with public worship having recently ceased. You can see the remains of the elegantly carved Norman doorway. The chapel was built in around 1160 as part of a hospital that was built around 10 years before. Both the hospital and this chapel were built by Norman lord of the manor: Robert le Bossu. Le Bossu was the son of Robert de Beaumont, Earl of Leicester who, having fought with William the Conqueror, became one of the biggest landowners in England. When the hospital was built, it was quite a way from the Norman settlement of Brackley, which is further south towards were Tesco is today, and offered relief for the poor and hospitality to travellers. None of these buildings remain as only the chapel was properly cared for in the Middle Ages.
Robert le Bossu’s son, Robert le Blanchmain, ensured the hospital and chapel’s survival for many years and centuries to come by endowing the hospital foundation in Brackley with considerable land and property which gave the hospital an income. There is a story about Robert Blanchmain that tells of what happened to him after his death in 1190 in Romania. Supposedly his heart was cut out, preserved in salt and placed in a lead casket and then transported back to Brackley. Apparently, hundreds of years later, during some restoration works in 1836 a workman discovered an ‘old box’ with what appeared to be some ‘old leather’ inside and he threw it away!
Magdalen College Oxford bought the chapel and hospital buildings in 1483 so they could finance their work in Oxford and also have somewhere away from Oxford to send their scholars in times of plague. The school grew and grew over the centuries and always occupied buildings on or near this site. These buildings that we see today fronting the High Street are actually only about 150 years old, even though they look much older. This school was a boys’ school, with the girls being educated at Brackley High - what was Southfields Primary Academy until its closure in July 2024. A new secondary modern was built on Waynflete Avenue. All three schools combined to create a co-educational school over two sites in 1973.
The War Memorial to the left of the chapel honourng Brackley’s Great War dead, was dedicated in 1920, having been commissioned by HP Stace, a local auctioneer, and his wife in memory of their son, Arthur. Arthur was a pilot in the RAF, killed in a flying accident in Belgium in 1919.
Note the Bell Tower building on the opposite side of the road, to which you will return later.
Walk down the hill, past Costa and onto the Piazza
4. War Memorial - Brackley’s war memorial was dedicated on New Year’s Day 1920. Those who died in the Second World War were subsequently added to the memorial and more recently, Nicholas Webster-Smith’s name was added after his death in 2009.
The war memorial has not always been in this position. It was originally placed further North on what is now the western side of the car park. This piazza on which you are standing was also a car park; in 2006 there was a project to ‘liberate’ both the Town Hall and the War Memorial from car parks and create a more fitting setting for them both. The Royal British Legion led a re-dedication service after it was moved.
5. Town Hall – In 1706 the head of the Egerton
family, Scroop Egerton, built a Market House at the
cost of £2000, he then sold it to the Brackley
Corporation for a shilling. There was a Town Hall
further up the High Street which was in a state of
disrepair, so eventually that one came down and this
Market House became known as the Town Hall. It
was smaller when it was built, by one bay (one
arched window). The arches were once open
doorways which allowed a market to take place
under cover. It was primarily a wool and lace to
wn and became a corn exchange. In 1883 the great,
great nephew of Scroop Egerton, Francis,
commissioned the extension of the building. A fifth
bay was added and the clock tower moved along. A
further, extensive, restoration project with
substantial support from the Heritage Lottery Fund,
was completed in 2018, ensuring the protection of
the building for many future generations.
The market place around the Town Hall has seen
centuries of activity. Brackley was the second
wealthiest town in Northamptonshire by the early
1300s thanks to the wool industry; the market place
accommodated a thriving livestock market into the
20th century. In 1784, the Reverend John Wesley,
founder of the Methodist movement, stopped on his
travels to preach outside the Town Hall. He records
in his journal that “The congregation was large and
attentive but seemed to understand me no more that
if I had been talking Greek”. In 1866 a well-
attended political reform meeting at the Town Hall
was followed by a riot at the Locomotive Inn (on
Bridge Street) that the two local policemen struggled
until the early hours to suppress. Thomas Judge, the
“Demon Grocer of Brackley”, was a leader of the
movement; his family shop occupied the splendid
Georgian property on Bridge Street that is now
occupied by the Orchid dental practice. The piazza
now hosts regular events such as classic cars shows
, civic celebrations, a weekly market and
performances on Bank Holidays by the Brackley
Morris Men.
Walk to the crossing opposite Boots, cross the road and head south past the Old Hall Bookshop.
6. Crown Hotel – The Crown is the oldest Inn in the town. It would have been very busy when the town was a key stop for coaches travelling from Oxford and Northampton. There was a very big fire in August 1649 which destroyed 14 apartments at the rear of the hotel and then spread north along the high street. The fire reached a chandler’s shop in Hall’s Lane and some £200 worth of tallow exploded. The inn was restored after the fire, it was owned by Magdalen College at the time.
7. Castle – Further down Bridge Street, which becomes Oxford Road, was the site of the Norman settlement which was largely based around a castle which was located on what is now called Castle Mound -behind Tesco, opposite the New Fire Station. The area opposite St James’ Lake occupied by allotments and pasture, is a scheduled monument, being the site of the castle’s motte and bailey. The castle, of which there are no visible remains, comprised an earth mound topped by a wooden keep with stone foundations. St James’ Lake is probably in the position of the castle moat and fishing ponds. There was also a castle church near to the site of the New Fire Station, St James’ which existed in one form or another until the 1930s; there are still some grave markers in the wooded area next to the Oxford Road. In the eighteenth century, Philip Leapor, the father of Mary Leapor (1722 – 1746), the important Brackley poet, operated a successful nursery business on the castle site. Mary will appear again in our story.
Walk down Hall’s Lane (to the right of the Crown) being mindful of the uneven ground in places. Turn right into Manor Road noting the WI Hall opposite; the building on the right-hand side of the junction with Banbury Road was Brackley’s police station in the Victorian era, now converted to residential use. Behind your left shouder, Waitrose and the flats above it, stand on the site of one of Brackley’s larger breweries and the original Bronnley soap factory (before the latter relocated to Radstone Road), and reflect their industrial shape.
8. Manor Road – Manor Road is one of the oldest streets in Brackley, it runs parallel to the High Street so would have been one of the first main residential roads. This area also has many non-historic elements, but everything that is inside the conservation area is protected and subject to tighter planning rules.
Walk up Manor Road, past the library to the top of Hill Street.
9. Waynflete Avenue – Here is the second site of
Magdalen College School. Incidentally, the road here
is named after William Waynflete who founded
Magdalen College Oxford in the 15th century and so
has links with our Magdalen College School, too.
This estate is a post-war addition to the town and
further down Waynflete Avenue was where the
Brackley Workhouse once stood. It was opened in
1837 and came down in the 1930s. The Brackley
Urban District Council minutes of 1888 record that
a request was made for the newly founded Brackley
Sanitary Authority, who were providing better mains
water to the town, to provide mains water to the
workhouse at a reduced rate due to them being a
long way out of the Town Centre and provided for
the poor. The minutes go on to record that this
request was turned down by the council who told the
workhouse they would have to pay the same as
everyone else. Incidentally, this development is a
vast improvement on the conditions described by
Mary Leapor in a satirical poem published in 1751:
“This Brackley is the worst of Airs;/Where standing
Wells, and putrid Drains,/And sweating Nymphs,
and spawling Swains,/On either Side, before
, behind,/Provide a Stench for ev’ry Wind/ Who can
endure the hideous Scene / Where ev’ry Face
creates the Spleen ?” !
10. Hill Street Chapel – The first Methodist church
building was up this end of Hill Street, then called
Tinker’s Lane. It was a small chapel and the building
remained in use by the Methodist church and then
for storage until it was demolished in the 1970s.
These gravestones are all that reminds us that this
chapel was once here. In 1905, the new church
opened further down Hill Street, which you will see
in a moment.
Walk down Hill Street back towards the High Street
11. The Bell Tower - This beautiful building is
known as ‘The Bell Tower’ and also ‘Feed My
Lambs School’ due to the inscription above one of
the doorways. It was opened as a Church of England
school in 1871 and remained so until the late 1960s.
Many people living in the town have memories of
being taught here. After its closure as a school, it
was a restaurant and night club amongst many other
things before being sold in 2011 and converted into
flats.
Cross the road at the traffic lights and turn left, back towards the fire station. Winchester House will be on the opposite side of the road.
12. Winchester House – This impressive building has been home to Winchester House School, Brackley’s only independent school, since 1922. Before that, it was briefly St Edith’s School for girls. Prior to its life as a school, though, it was Brackley’s Manor House. The original building was a 17th century tithe house and later, a hunting lodge. In the late 19th century, it was rebuilt and expanded by the Earl of Ellesmere. The only original part remaining is this Tudor doorway that faces the High Street. After the death of the 3rd Earl, the 4th Earl sold the Brackley Estate by auction in 1915, including this manor house: the very same auction that failed to sell Brackley Park, where you began!
OLD TOWN CONSERVATION AREA SELF-GUIDED TOUR
Start: 1. Fire Station and Park
The Old Fire Station was built in 1887. It was the home of the Fire Service of Brackley until the early 2000s when they moved to new premises on the Oxford Road. It was owned by the National Trust who sold it to the Town Council in 2013 who operate one side as community rooms, available for hire and one side as a commercial venture – currently the Old Fire Station CafĂ©.
The Park was originally part of the land owned by the Egerton Family– the lords of the manor and holders of titles such as the Viscountcy of Brackley, the Earldom of Ellesmere and Earldom and Dukedom of Bridgewater – VERY confusing. The Egertons’ other estates included New Hall, Worsley (near heavily-industrialised Salford – cotton, coal, brickmaking) and Stetchworth Park (near Newmarket) as well as Brackley. The first Viscount Brackley, Sir Thomas Egerton, was a high-ranking lawyer and judge during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I. The site of Winchester House School, on the other side of the main road, was given to the Egertons by George III as a reward for canal-building in Lancashire. It was redeveloped by the 3rd Earl of Ellesmere in 1870, who used it as a hunting lodge and weekend retreat ! The Ellesmere’s auctioned off their assets in 1915 to pay death duties when the 3rd Earl died , the park was due to be sold as a building plot. Luckily the park did not sell and it eventually became owned by a Mr Collingham who lived in London but had once been a resident of Brackley. He gave the park to the National Trust in 1928 and the National Trust entrusted its care and management to the Brackley Corporation (the Town Council of its day). The Town Council signed a new 99 year lease on the park in 2013. The manor house became a school in 1922. By the way, we needn’t feel too sorry for the Egertons – they still held on to Mertoun House in Scotland, Stetchworth Park and Bridgewater House in St James’s, London. Note the three Wellingtonia (Giant Redwoods) – examples were also planted by Queen Victoria at Worsley in 1857 in memory of the first Duke of Wellington.
Walk north through the Park, cross Pebble Lane and carry on along the High Street, to the Greyhound inn.
2. Almshouses – In the 17th Century, Brackley’s prosperity was declining as Banbury’s was on the rise – this continued for a couple of hundred years, to the extent that in 1860 in Das Kapital, Karl Marx referred to Brackley as “one of the most down-trodden places in England for agricultural workers.” Brackley’s absentee lord of the manor, John Egerton the 1st Earl of Bridgewater and son of the first Viscount Brackley, was unpopular – as mentioned earlier, the family had substantial estates elsewhere, which also included Tatton in Cheshire and Ashridge House in Hertfordshire, one of the largest country houses in England, bought from Elizabeth I. Increasingly, the town looked for political guidance to Sir Thomas Crewe, Lord of the Manor of nearby Steane and Hinton, who was Speaker of the House of Commons. In 1633, Crewe founded Brackley’s Almshouses, providing accommodation for 6 widows of the town. In 1969, the almshouses were converted into 4 flats and still provide accommodation for the most needy in our town.
At the Greyhound, turn right into Church Road
3. Church Road – Once off the High Street at this point, you are in what is known as ‘Old Town’. There is also a road called Old Town which you will reach later but this whole area is known by that name as it is the oldest part of Brackley.
Walk to the triangular green at the end of Church Road.
4. Village Green – It is thought that this small patch of green is the remains of the original Saxon village green. So you are now standing at the heart of Historic Brackley, where communities have met and dwelt for hundreds of years. Brackley got its name from a man which is very unusual. The main manor was historically Halse, and one of the Saxon settlers, Bracca, moved and settled in a clearing or Lea and the area became known as Bracca’s Lea and has become Brackley – could this area possibly be “Bracca’s lea” ? Evidence suggests Roman activity here before the Saxons, but Brackley’s real roots seem to lie in the Saxon period. The Normans settled in a different area of Brackley, nearer the river which became a separate part of the town. This is covered in the other conservation area tour.
Cross the Green (the golden spring is built into the wall surrounding the green space)
5. Golden Spring & St Rumbold - This stone arch surrounding this well head has been here since the 13th Century. This was one of Old Town’s many wells. The green space surrounding the church is sometimes referred to as Goldwell Green. The Victorians made additions to this well head in the 19th century, which has probably helped preserve it for us; it was used as the playing field for Egerton House School and at time included a large pond. You can see two statues on the church tower; these are St Peter (to whom the church is dedicated) on the right, and St Hugh of Lincoln (more about St Hugh later). It is said that at night the statues come to this well to drink. Somewhere nearby is another of Brackley’s famous springs, which is called St Rumbold’s spring. The story of St Rumbold is a strange one. The legend goes that the grandson of a Saxon king was born in King’s Sutton in 662 and immediately began talking of his Christian faith and foretold his own death. When he died, just three days later, his wishes were to be buried first in King’s Sutton and then in Brackley, for one year each, before finally being laid to rest in Buckingham. A new well sprang up at each of his resting places and many miracles were said to have happened at St Rumbold’s spring in Brackley. The spring is now part of a private garden but is remembered here at the Golden Spring.
Follow the road round to the left with the high stone wall on your right, and turn right into Old Town
6. Old Town – This is Old Town, the road that named the area. The layout of the streets heading off from Old Town dates back to the original Saxon village. Behind this wall that runs along the right hand side of the road, used to be a beautiful mock Tudor house that was built in around 1870 as the vicarage for St Peter’s Church. It was later turned into a school ‘Egerton House’ and sadly demolished in the late 1990s – before the Old Town was designated as a conservation area. The high wall on the right is all that remains of Egerton House.
Walk along Old Town and turn right after the house called ‘Little Ingrams’ The road past the Church bears left onto a footpath that leads down to the River Ouse, and continues over a footbridge to Turweston.
7. Church of St Peter - The site of the parish church of St Peter’s may have been in use for worship since the 7th century, although nothing survives of the original Saxon building. It was built by the Normans around 1100 and as Brackley’s wealth increased during the Medieval period, it was altered and extended. The oldest remaining parts include the Norman arch above the south door which is inside the new modern extension. Unusually, the entrance is via the west door under the tower, rather than through the north door, which is bricked up. Local myth says that the devil entered the building through that door so they bricked it up to stop it happening again. The congregation, on the other hand, were encouraged to enter through the new west door; this is unusual in that it faces west (towards the new town) and is at the foot of the clock tower that houses the church bells. The carvings around the door include two that point to another one of Brackley’s mysteries – can you find them ? One of the mysteries surrounds a priest who was murdered by a servant of the lord of the manor, and was buried with his dog. The second mystery tells of a thief who sought sanctuary in the church but was tricked into leaving by a servant of the lord of the manor. The thief was then murdered by the servant. Both of these murders would have been considered to be acts of sacrilege against the church and the perpetrators would have been punished severely (there are gruesome stories about the penalties !) This may explain why there is a statue of St Hugh above us as he was well-known for his rigorous enforcement of church law. The final part of the mystery concerns something that may be found in the churchyard to the left of the west door : I the grass under the hedge, you may find a grave covered by a stone in the shape of a man wearing priestly vestments …. said to be the grave of the murdered priest The noted Brackley poet, Mary Leapor (1722 – 1746) is buried in the churchyard; her gravestone has been lost, but she now has a permanent memorial inside the church.
Head south through the Graveyard. Then turn right when you reach Watery Lane towards Pebble Lane – passing another spring (on the right, in the area marked “ Jenny’s Pond”). St Rumbold’s spring is probably to the left of the path
8. Pebble Lane – This is Pebble Lane, it runs parallel to Church Road and leads us back to the ‘New Town’ of Brackley. This, and Watery Lane, were once part of the main road between Banbury and Buckingham. On the 1760 map of the town that is available to view at the Northamptonshire Records Office has it called ‘Pibble Lane’, pibble seems to have been an alternative word for pebble in the 15th-18th centuries so that fact that it has changed is not so odd.
Walk up Pebble Lane
9. Cottage Hospital – The cottage hospital was first established in 1877 with two beds. It was financed by local philanthropists and was taken over by the newly formed National Health Service in 1948 by which time it had 13 beds. It was taken over by a charitable trust in 1991. After that, services decreased as funding diminished until the hospital was closed in 2015. The property was sold to be developed into the private dwelling that we see today. . The new health centre near Sainsbury’s in the North of the town carries out some of the old functions of the cottage hospital.
You are now back at Brackley Park, where the tour began.
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