Staverton

58 STAVERTON

(OS 1: 10000 ^a SP 56 SW, ^b SP 56 SE, ^c SP 55 NW)

The parish, covering some 870 hectares, lies immediately S.W. of Daventry; its W. boundary, along the R. Leam, is also the county boundary with Warwickshire. The centre of the parish is an almost level area of Jurassic Marlstone Rock around 170 m. above OD, with an area of Upper Lias Clay to the E., beyond which the land rises sharply to Staverton Clump, the W. end of a short E.–W. ridge of Northampton Sand at about 225 m. above OD. The village stands on the W. edge of the Marlstone outcrop. To the N., W. and S. the land falls steeply to the valley of the R. Leam and its tributaries which flow in clay-bottomed valleys between 100 m. and 125 m. above OD. Little of note has been recorded in the parish.

Prehistoric

A looped palstave is recorded from the parish (VCH Northants., I (1902), 143), but this may be one of the two palstaves listed under Everdon (Plate 22).

Medieval and Later

^a(1) Settlement remains (?) (SP 541611), on the E. side of Staverton village, immediately N. of the church on Marlstone Rock at about 172 m. above OD. Modern farm buildings and a new house appear to have destroyed almost all of a group of earthworks though some large degraded scarps may be the E. part of them.

^a(2) Hollow-way (SP 534613–538611), on the S.W. side of the village, immediately N. of and parallel to the Daventry–Leamington road (A425). It extends for some 450 m. down the hillside and is 12 m. wide and up to 2.5 m. deep. It presumably represents an earlier line of the present road running down the W.-facing spur to the crossing of the R. Leam.

(3) Cultivation remains. The common fields of the parish were enclosed by an Act of Parliament of 1774 (NRO, Enclosure Map). Ridge-and-furrow of these fields exists on the ground or can be traced on air photographs over almost the entire parish, even extending to within a few metres of the R. Leam, which forms the W. boundary of the parish, and over the very steep N.W.-facing scarp to the N. of the village where it is still well preserved. However in the narrow valleys with extremely marshy bottoms which are cut back into the scarp N.E. of the village (e.g. SP 547635, 548630, 548624 and 548621) there is no indication of any medieval or later cultivation and these areas may have been the meadow-land of the medieval parish.

The ridge-and-furrow is mainly arranged in rectangular furlongs, with the ridges almost always running down the slope. This is specially notable on the scarp to the N., N.W. and S.W. of the village. To the S.W. (centred SP 530607) where three small almost parallel streams flow W. to meet the R. Leam the pattern of ridges is carefully adapted to this broken land. Further N., on flatter ground below the scarp face (SP 535625), the rectangular furlongs are mostly interlocked (RAF VAP CPE/UK/1994, 1277–80, 2272–4, 4276–80).