Ashton Through Time
This page tells the history of Ashton through time. If you can help, please do join in.
(Get in touch with brian@briansmithonline.com)
Have you ever wondered why the village sign in Ashton has a deer and a heraldic shield?
The answer lies nearly a thousand years ago, because although people have lived in this area since the Iron and Bronze Ages, Ashton did not exist until after the Norman Conquest.
It all began in 1066 when William the Conqueror took control of Britain and claimed all land for the Crown. He divided it amongst his supporters in return for the services of knights who would fight for the king when needed. This was the Feudal System.
Our area at the edge of the Fens was unremarkable except for a Monastery at nearby Medehamstead (now Peterborough) and a Roman road which we call King Street running north-south across the landscape.
In 1069, the Abbot of Meadhamstead died and King William I (the Conqueror’s son) installed a Norman Abbot called Thorald, who gave what is now our Parish to a kinsman of his called Roger de Torpel for a fee of six knights.
Roger chose to build his manor adjacent to the Roman road which probably had quite a lot of movement along it at the time, making it a sensible choice.
Torpel Manor and a Deer Park
Roger built a fortified tower beside the road. He also built his manor farm just two fields away (Manor Farm in Ashton) and a Mill a bit further away, where the Roman road crossed the River Welland at Lolham. Ashton, is still linked to the site of the tower by a footpath named Torpel Way which runs from Bretton in Peterborough all the way to Stamford.
The de Torpel family lived here for 171 years. Confusingly, most of the male heirs were named Roger and in 1198 the current Roger paid one hundred shillings to King Richard I to be allowed to enclose his woodland to form a deer park. It seems to have been a typical mediaeval deer park, either fenced or surrounded by a bank, with enclosed woods and open spaces where deer were raised and hunted. Much of the woodland has since been lost but Hilly Wood, Rough Ravens and Lawn Wood still exist together with various sections of hedge and wall.
Over the years, Torpel Manor gained a Mother Church on the high ground at Ufford and a Chapel of Ease at Bainton. Ashton was a hamlet of dwellings clustered around the Manor Farm.
Little is known about life at Torpel Manor and the house itself is now lost, but it was clearly a thriving mediaeval manor.
In 1240 the Lord of the Manor’s only son died, which meant there was no male heir so the de Torpel name died out. There was however a daughter and she married Ralph de Camoys of Upton Manor. This meant that Upton and Torpel Manors were held by one family, the Camoys. They replaced the fortified house with a modern ‘Hall House’ like this.
However, Ralph's son, John, sold it to Queen Eleanor, the wife of King Edward I, despite the fact that this was illegal because the land still belonged to the Monastery and should have been returned to it.
Passed Back and Forth
The King turned a blind eye to this transgression and promptly gave Torpel Manor to his favourite, Piers Gavaston. Over the next century, the manor repeatedly returned to the current King and was given it to whoever was in favour at the time. There was no single family living in it and taking pride in it.
The Great Plague Changed everything
In the 1300s England was ravaged by the Black Death. It was at its height between 1349 and 1350, but it returned from time to time. Between a third and half the population of England died and it marked a turning point in the history, not just of Ashton, but of England.
After the Black Death, the Feudal way of life, which had appeared so permanent, was disrupted. There was such a shortage of manpower that ordinary people discovered that they had a bargaining power that had never existed before.
Most people continued to live on the manors where they were born, but they were no longer tied to the lord, so they could move if they wanted to. New types of worker appeared – agricultural labourers and craftsmen – and they worked for wages. Farming itself didn’t change. Large open fields were still cultivated in strips, and common land was used by everyone. But the ordinary people had a new freedom.
Changing Owners
Between 1527 and 1554 Torpel Manor was leased to Sir Robert Wingfield, who ‘disparked’ and it and the whole area became farmland, which it is to this day. The former park area was the only enclosed land in the village; the rest was open fields and common areas.
We don’t know if the Wingfield family ever lived in Torpel Manor House. It seems unlikely because they also held land at Helpston from Earl Fitzwilliam, so they probably didn’t need a second manor house. Perhaps this is when the house itself began to decay.
In the late 1500s Torpel was owned by Queen Elizabeth I. It was one of many Manors, including several around Stamford, which provided her income of £3000 a year.
In 1625 the City of London took ownership of it, as security for a loan to Charles I.
Presumably he never paid them back because in 1670 they sold it to the Tighe family.
Stability at Last – but No Need of a House
Finally, in 1687, the Tighes sold it to Sir Thomas Trollope of Casewick Hall. Sir Thomas lived at Casewick and would have had no need of a possibly decaying and inconvenient medieval house so he probably bought the estate to use as additional farmland.
In the book ‘Victoria County History’ it is suggested that some of the stone from the Manor House may have been used in the Manor Farm building at Ashton and also in some houses in West Street, Helpston, and also that a mediaeval arch adjoining Spring Farm in Helpston may have been part of it. In the 20th century some more of the stones are said to have been used on the Trollope-Bellew farm in Barholm and to repair roads.
The Ordinary People of Ashton
Almost nothing is known of the ordinary people who lived in Ashton until the mid 1500s when Parish Registers were introduced. From this time onward we know the names of most of the people who lived here and their dates of birth, death and burial.
We also know that they farmed using the strip system with each tenant holding strips scattered across the Parish. It gave everyone a fair share of both good and bad arable land and was a time-honoured practice across the country. Everyone also had rights of grazing on the pastures and meadows, whether they owned strips or not. There will also have been stonemasons, blacksmiths and other craftsmen living here or travelling through.
Enclosure
But in the 1700s agriculture was changing. Four field crop rotation and selective breeding of animals greatly increased food production and the old strip system became increasingly unsuitable. So in 1796, the wealthier landowners petitioned Parliament to enclose the land. This was massively disruptive for the smaller landholders and the poor, who relied of the woods and common pastures for forage for themselves and their animals. But there was no stopping progress and the current arrangement of fields and paddocks was laid out in the Awards Map of 1799.
Annual Census
In 1841, the first official census was taken and has been repeated every ten years ever since. Because of this, we know everyone who lived in the farms and cottages of Ashton during the past 180 years.
So as you step out of your front door, give a thought to the many hundreds of years of history which have culminated in the shape of our roads and the layout of our fields … and indeed the very existence of this tiny hamlet which is near a Roman road and not far from a Fen Edge Monastery which, incidentally, became the Cathedral City of Peterborough.
This information was compiled by Pamela Broster, who lived in Ashton from 1988 to 2011 and undertook considerable research. The full article, from which this summary was drawn gives much detail, including the possible origins of the names Ufford, Bainton and Ashton. You can read it here.
Another major contributor to our local knowledge is Frieda Gosling of Ufford who has been a driving force behind all the research into the history of our parish.
There is also an excellent website written by Frieda and illustrated by the children of Helpston and Barnack Schools. It's published by the Langdyke Trust, which is researching Torpel Manor. Click here to view it. It can be read online but is also a downloadable PDF.
Next, a few sketches showing the inhabitants of Ashton in the 19th and 20th centuries ...
And some photographs of 20th century residents ...
Unveiling the Village Sign in 2000.
Dolly Carford, centre, and her brother Norman, centre-left, were Ashton's oldest residents and had lived here since 1923.Dolly unveiled the sign and there was a barbeque.
It turned out to be the first 'Friday Night at the Green' because everyoine enjoyed it so much they said,
"Let's do it on the last Friday of every month!"
The notion of putting optics on the sign never quite happened but the Friday gatherings happen to this day.(The eagle-eyed amongst you will notice that this photo was taken later, after the seat was added)
The sign was
designed by
John Wreford (right)
He generously took both Dolly and her brother Norman up for a ride over Peterborough.