A Thousand Years of Rushden
Starting in 1086 with the Domesday Book, there were two large farms and twenty families (100 people) living in Risendene (Rushy Vale) around Church Green. Each family probably
A Thousand Years of Rushden
Starting in 1086 with the Domesday Book, there were two large farms and twenty families (100 people) living in Risendene (Rushy Vale) around Church Green. Each family probably had two pigs. Cattle and sheep were grazed on unfenced pasture at South End Green. Southern Green remains the same today.
The first Lords of the Manor - the Bassets - lived in the Bury beside the church. The list of vicars is complete right back to 1220.
The Church 'living' was handed over to the Chapter of Lincoln and in 1336 it was declared a Vicarage but a very poor living. Two hundred years later it was still only valued at £8 per annum.
The Nave of the present church was built and later the Tower.
Bradfield Grange, now known as Friars Farm, was used by Cistercian monks and leased to the Newport family for £5 in 1478.
1500's : The Age of the Rising Gentry and Yeomen and the Decline of the Church and Barons.
The Bury by the church fell down. The Newport and Goodman families take advantage of rising prices and falling money values during the Tudor period.
Newport buys Friars for £60.
Cumberlow Green: Tudor mansion and three cottages and 420 acres sold to John Goodman by the Fortescues who had received it from Henry VII.
Newport bought Youngloves Farm (originally owned by John Younglove whose family moved to Cottered by the end of the 1500s)
Newport bought Julians for £1000. The Newport family now owned most of Rushden.
1600's : The speculators move in.
In James I's reign the depression caused the gentlemen and yeomen to start selling to the London City men while other poorer people began buying common fields. Outlying bits of farms were sold by the big lando