Brockhall, Northamptonshire
Historical Description
Brockhall, a village and a parish in Northamptonshire, on Watliug Street, the Grand Junction Canal, and the L. & N.W.R,, 2½ miles N of Weedon station, and 5½ E of Daventry. Post town, Weedon, which is the money order and telegraph office. Acreage of parish, 874; population, 50. The Hall, a fine ancient mansion of stone, standing in a park of 63 acres, belonged formerly to the Eytons and the Tyrwhitts, and belongs now to the Thorntons. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Peterborough; net value, £160 with residence. The church is partly Norman, and was restored in 1874.
Administration
The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.
Ancient County | Northamptonshire | |
Ecclesiastical parish | Brockhall St. Peter And St. Paul | |
Hundred | Newbottle-Grove | |
Poor Law union | Daventry |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
The register dates from the year 1561.
Ancestry.co.uk, in association with the Northamptonshire Record Office, have images of the Parish Registers and Bishop's Transcripts for Northamptonshire online.
Churches
Church of England
St. Peter (parish church)
The church of St. Peter is a small building of stone, in the Norman, Early English and Perpendicular styles, consisting of chancel, nave, south aisle, south porch and an embattled western tower containing 3 bells: the aisle is separated from the nave by an arcade of one pointed and two round arches: in the wall, a little above the floor, is a matrix of a brass, consisting of a floriated cross and an inscription to Peter de Thurleston, rector in 1281: on the walls are numerous tablets to the Thornton family: the north side of the nave seems to have been rebuilt about the middle of the 15th century, and the same date may be given to the porch and upper storey of the tower: the font is octagonal and of Perpendicular date: in 1890 a memorial window was erected by the Thornton family to the late Rev. Philip Thornton, for 63 years rector of the parish, and a carved oak reredos was presented in memory of the eldest daughter of the rector by her father and mother: the church was restored in 1874, when it was new roofed and re-seated, the cost, amounting to about £1,000, being defrayed by the late T. C. Thornton, then patron of the living: there are 100 sittings.
Civil Registration
For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Brockhall from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Brockhall (St. Peter And St. Paul))
- Kelly's Directory of Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Northamptonshire, 1914
Land and Property
Brockhall Hall is a fine mansion of stone, erected in the time of James I. and purchased by Thomas Thornton esq. of Newnham, about 1609; about 1800 it was enlarged, and stands in a park of 63 acres, watered by a tributary of the river Nene, which here forms an ornamental sheet of water.
The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Northamptonshire is available to browse.
Maps
Online maps of Brockhall are available from a number of sites:
- Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- Google Streetview.
- National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
- OpenStreetMap.
- old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
- Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)
Newspapers and Periodicals
The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Northamptonshire papers online: