Moreton Pinkney

Moreton Pinkney

Lodge and gateway to the manor house
Moreton Pinkney
 Moreton Pinkney shown within Northamptonshire
Population 371 (2011 Census)
OS grid referenceSP5749
Civil parishMoreton Pinkney
DistrictSouth Northamptonshire
Shire countyNorthamptonshire
RegionEast Midlands
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post town Daventry
Postcode district NN11
Dialling code 01295
Police Northamptonshire
Fire Northamptonshire
Ambulance East Midlands
EU Parliament East Midlands
UK ParliamentDaventry
WebsiteMoreton Pinkney
List of places
UK
England
Northamptonshire

Coordinates: 52°08′17″N 1°09′47″W / 52.138°N 1.163°W / 52.138; -1.163

Moreton Pinkney is a village and civil parish in South Northamptonshire, about 7.5 miles (12 km) north of Brackley. The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 371.[1]

Manor

In the reign of Edward the Confessor one Leuric held the manor of Moreton "freely",[2] i.e. without a feudal overlord. He was dispossessed after the Norman Conquest of England and the Domesday Book of 1086 records that one Geoffrey held the manor of Gilo, bother of Ansculf de Picquigny.[2] "Pinkney" is a corruption of "Picquigny", a village in Picardy.[3] In the 12th century Henry de Pinkeny (sic) held the manor.[4] In both surveys the manor was assessed at one and a half hides.[2][4]

Parish church

The earliest evidence of Christianity in the parish is a fragment of an Anglo-Saxon stone cross in the churchyard of the Church of England parish church of St Mary the Virgin.[5] The church itself was built in the 12th century,[6] which is the date of its Norman north door and three-bay northern arcade.[5] The piscina and west tower date from about 1300.[5] St Mary's is a Grade II* listed building.[6]

The Augustinian Canons Ashby Priory had appropriated "the spirituality" of St Mary's by 1254.[7] John Dalderby, Bishop of Lincoln, sanctioned this retrospectively in 1309.[7]

The chancel was rebuilt in 1846 in a Gothic Revival of a 13th-century style.[5]

St Mary's has a ring of six bells. Hugh II Watts, who had foundries in Bedford and Leicester,[8] cast the tenor bell in 1629.[9] The Whitechapel Bell Foundry cast the other five bells in 1996.[9]

St Mary's parish is a member of the Benefice of Culworth with Sulgrave and Thorpe Mandeville and Chipping Warden with Edgcote and Moreton Pinkney.[10]

Social and economic history

England's Rose pub (formerly the Red Lion) after it closed down

Moreton Pinkney village is a mixture of traditional houses in grey stone and brown ironstone.[5]

Moreton Pinkney once had three public houses: The Crown on Brook Street and the Red Lion and Dun Cow on Upper Green. The Red Lion was more recently called England's Rose, a reference to Diana, Princess of Wales, and closed in about 2004. In 2012 the site was being redeveloped.

The parish school was built in 1822 and enlarged in 1876.[5] Moreton Pinkney Manor was built in 1859 and altered in 1870.[5] The entrance arch designed by the architect E.F. Law of Northampton, built in 1859 and bears the arms of Lord Sempill.[5]

Railways

The parish had two railway stations. The East and West Junction Railway (later the Stratford-upon-Avon and Midland Junction Railway) was built through the parish with Morton Pinkney railway station being opened in 1873 14-mile (0.4 km) north of the village on the parish boundary with Canons Ashby.

The Great Central Main Line from Nottingham Victoria to London Marylebone was built through the parish in the 1890s and opened in 1899. Its nearest station was Culworth, which was actually in Moreton Pinkney parish about 34-mile (1.2 km) southwest of the village on the road to Culworth. In 1900 the Great Central Railway added a branch line from Culworth Junction in the parish to Banbury in Oxfordshire.

British Railways closed Morton Pinkney station in 1952 and Culworth station in 1958. The 1963 The Reshaping of British Railways report recommended that BR close the Great Central main line, which it did in 1966.

References

Course of the former Great Central Main Line through the parish, opened in 1899 and closed in 1966

Sources and further reading

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