Based on the paper by M Page & R Jones "Medieval settlements and landscapes in the Whittlewood area : interim report 2000-1" in 'Medieval Settlement Research Group Annual Report 15 (2000)', pp. 10-18 - with supplementary material from The History of the County of Northampton Vol.V - Cleley Hundred (ed. Philip Riden)

A Brief History of Puxley

The settlement of Puxley along with the other three settlements of Passenham, Deanshanger and Old Stratford made up the four main components of the ancient parish of Passenham.  Puxley had been an area of active assarting in the 13th century and probably before, but later became depopulated and was enclosed in the 15th and 16th centuries.

The parish of Passenham was heavily wooded in its north-western and north-eastern parts and lay within the bounds of the royal forest of Whittlewood . Puxley lay between two walks of Whittlewood Forest , Hanger and Shrob, and was anciently associated with the stewardship of the forest. In an undated charter Henry II made three grants to his forester, Broneman: a demesne tenement at Puxley, which lay between the forest at Wakefield and the fee of Letitia de Ferrers at Passenham, with the houses, men and cattle there; a piece of demesne land called La Haye; and custody of Whittlewood Forest, which was to be hereditary in him and his heirs.

Puxley expanded markedly between the 11th and 14th centuries, almost certainly as a result of assarting. Thus, for example, in 1250 it was reported that Hugh de Stratford had made a purpresture out of the king’s demesne at Puxley, consisting of a quarter of a rood – a tiny amount of land – on which he had built seven cottages, of which he himself held two, John Page held one, William son of Elias another, William son of Robert a fifth, Richard Neuman a sixth, and John Edmund the seventh. Larger encroachments were also recorded. In 1343 Henry Gobion and his son Hugh assarted 40 acres from ‘Grobyhull’, which they enclosed with a small ditch and low hedge, and on which they sowed oats one year, wheat the next, and which the following year lay fallow.

By the 14th century Puxley had become a settlement of considerable size. In 1341 one estate there consisted of at least 29 houses, and a charter of 1384 reveals that open-field agriculture was practised. However, it is likely that in the wake of the Black Death and the resulting fall in population, the settlement began to contract and the fields were enclosed. Certainly by 1566 it was recorded that ‘there is decayed in Puxley a tenement called Nuttces in the tenure of Nicholas Clerke and also diverse other tenements and cottages there decayed, the names and number whereof are not known’. In the 1720s Bridges described Puxley as ‘an hamlet of four mean houses … formerly a much greater number’, which accords well with the view illustrated on the forest map of c.1608.

The Whittlewood Forest map of 1608 Details for Puxley (Pooksly)

An important factor in the growth and decline of Puxley seems to have been the village’s close association with Whittlewood. The separation of the keepership of the forest from the manor of Puxley in the 13th or 14th century and its subsequent transfer to Wakefield is likely to have been of some significance for the fortunes of the settlement. Where once a constable from Puxley attended the twice-yearly manor court of Passenham, by 1507 no one from Puxley attended. The status and tenancies of the royal manor in Puxley (the demesne tenement granted by Henry II and referred to above) was also undergoing change.  For around a century from 1417 the keepership of Whittlewood Forest had descended down the family of the Greens of Greens Norton Manor.  When the last Sir Thomas Green died in 1506, his estates were divided between his two daughters and co-heirs.  However, in a series of purchases and transfers, the whole of the Green estates were conveyed to King Henry VIII in 1536, and were subsequently annexed to the honor of Grafton when that was created in 1542. They remained part of the honor till 1673, when it was granted out and formed part of the Wakefield Lodge Estate until the sales of 1919 and 1920.  Another manor in Puxley – the Peveril manor – had been part of the honor of Leicester in the thirteenth century, but later in the fourteenth century it passed to the earls of Warwick , till in 1487 Anne Neville the dowager Countess of Warwick conveyed it to Henry VII.  This manor, like the Green manor, was annexed to the honor of Grafton.

When the 2nd Duke of Grafton assumed control of the honor in 1725 (see The History of the Grafton Estate) and made Wakefield Lodge the administrative centre of the estate, his holdings in nearby Puxley comprised a farm of 38 acres at Puxley Green.  The Duke also held the rangership of Whittlewood Forest .  Between 1766 and 1783 the 3rd Duke made further purchases of land around Puxley, and this process was continued by the 4th Duke in 1817  In 1855 the holdings were increased when Whittlewood Forest was disafforested, and the 5th Duke acquired land as part compensation for the loss of the rangership of the forest.  By 1890, Puxley Green Farm had grown to 120 acres and there were two other smallholdings of 26 acres at Briary Lodge and 19 acres at Hanger Lodge.  All of these were included in the Wakefield Estate sale of 1920.

The Wise Family This picture is undated but is probably from about 1890. The man seated in the centre is John Wise, farmer at Puxley Green. A comment on the reverse of the photo says he married a Rebecca Bliss. The other members are identified as: Catherine Amy Wise, John Wise Junior (father of the John Wise who lived in Potterspury High Street with his sister), Bella Wise, and Mary Wise - who was apparently also known as "Aunt Polly".

(Note : on the 1920 Estate Sale Map for Potterspury & Puxley, between the two sections of Lot 83 there is a parcel of land marked as belonging to a Mrs Wise.)

Industrial development came to nearby Deanshanger in the nineteenth century. Puxley was never a parish in the civil or ecclesiastical term – with no council, no church, and no independent organisational focus to promote change, it remained a small agricultural community on the edge of more extensive afforested areas; always part of a larger whole.