Welton

65 WELTON

(OS 1: 10000^a SP 56 NE, ^b SP 66 NW)

The parish is almost rectangular and lies to the W. of Watling Street (A5) which forms its E. boundary. Its area is about 790 hectares. From the higher ground in the W., which reaches a maximum of 170 m. above OD and where areas of Marlstone Rock are exposed, the land falls steeply across clays, silts and glacial deposits to the alluvium of the two valleys which are now occupied by the Grand Union Canal on the E. and S. edges of the parish at about 107 m. above OD. The village lies on the steep, S.E.-facing side of a spur.

Roman

A silver-washed copper coin was discovered in the parish before 1712 (J. Morton, Nat. Hist. of Northants. (1712), 532). A 3rd-century Roman silver coin of Barbia Orbiana was found in the churchyard in the early 19th century (G. Baker, Hist. of Northants., I (1822–30), 466; OS Record Cards). Other Roman coins, including one of Constantine, were found with the Anglo-Saxon burials (1) (NM; OS Record Cards). A skull and bones found at the side of the Roman road (at SP 59626767) may also be of the Roman period, but no details are known (OS Record Cards).

For Roman Road 1f, Watling Street, see Appendix.

Medieval and Later

^a(1) Saxon burials (?) (about SP 596678). According to a note by Sir Henry Dryden in the Dryden Collection (Central Library, Northampton), six skeletons were discovered in July 1845, on the side of or within the Roman road agger while it was being dug away for gravel. The skeletons were arranged 'some length-ways and once across the road, rather on one side of the road about 1 foot 6 inches deep'. One of the bodies had with it 'an iron thing about 1 foot 4 inches long' probably a spearhead. No other finds were made.

^a(2) Saxon cemetery (area SP 572659), discovered in 1778 in a field known as Stone Pit Close; this is thought to be the area later planted and re-named Long-ground Spinney, some 500 m. W. of the village on clay at 158 m. above OD. Two small skeletons were found in a rough cist, accompanied by two bronze small-long brooches, 23 beads of jet, amber, and green and patterned glass at the wrists and throat, and fragments of a spear. Between the skeletons was a small biconical vessel with an everted rim, decorated with line and dot ornament. Four or five perforated Roman coins of Constantine and Flavia were also discovered. A plain urn, thought to be from Welton, was in Netherhall, Cumberland, in 1794. In 1822 Baker found a necklace of 45 glass and amber beads. It is thought that other burials may have been destroyed without record. Small fragments of Roman pottery were found in the area in 1969 (G. Baker, Hist. of Northants., I (1822–30), 466; VCH Northants., I (1902), 235–6; Archaeologia, 48 (1885), 337; Meaney, Gazetteer, (1964), 196; J.N.L. Myres, Anglo-Saxon Pottery and the Settlement of England (1969), Fig. 36; No. 812; BNFAS, 7 (1972), 67; OS Record Cards; NM).

^a(3) Settlement remains (SP 58156625, 581658, 58456565), formerly part of the village of Welton, lie in three places in and around the village. On air photographs taken in 1947 (RAF VAP CPE/UK/1994, 2354, 4358) it is possible to trace the banks of closes which presumably once had houses within them. These were in two main places, at the top of the village in the area of the present playing fields, and down the hill to the S. on the corner of Church Road. All have since been destroyed by redevelopment. In the S.E. corner of the village, at the bottom of Kiln Lane, some flat rectangular platforms still survive. These may be house-sites but are perhaps the remains of kilns.

^a(4) Earthworks (SP 595656), in the S.E. of the parish, on clay at 105 m. above OD. Air photographs taken in 1947 (RAF VAP CPE/UK/1994, 4359–60) show a sinuous channel running roughly N.W.–S.E. and slightly embanked, particularly on the N. side. Its date and purpose are unknown and it has now been destroyed by ploughing. It has been suggested that the channel was an incomplete feature connected with the Grand Union Canal (OS Record Cards), but as the earthwork is considerably lower than the canal at this point this seems unlikely. On the 1st ed. OS 1 in. map of 1834 the channel is shown as a water-course diverting some of the flow from a tributary stream to a lower point on the main stream.

(5) Cultivation remains. The common fields of the parish were enclosed by Act of Parliament in 1755. Most of the ridge-and-furrow in the parish remains on the ground or can be traced on air photographs and the pattern is well preserved. As a result of the rolling landscape of the parish, with many steep-sided valleys, most of the furlongs are at right-angles to each other or set obliquely, apparently to ensure that ridges run down the slopes. An example of a headland between two end-on furlongs which has been subsequently ploughed over, giving a characteristic knuckled effect, is visible W. of Welton Grange (SP 593666; RAF VAP CPE/UK/1994, 2352–7, 4269–76, 4356–61; 2F22 543/RAF/2337, 0378–81).