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Take a walk round
Helmdon, a small village set in open country in the south
of Northamptonshire, England.
Its people love Helmdon, though no great
event or historical person has made it famous. It is a vibrant
community with a tale worth telling.
Helmdon has a population
of around 950 and used to be a farming community, catering
mostly for its own needs. From the early 18th century there
was also a thriving lace industry.
Today people go to work chiefly in the towns around, such
as Banbury and Northampton, and even to London. It has a nine-member
parish council.
The Welsh
Lane, an old drovers' route, runs across the south of
the village, and other roads come from Brackley, Sulgrave,
Weston and Wappenham.
Starting from the Welsh Lane
go down Station Road over a deep cutting. The first house
on your left is the former stationmaster's house for the station
"Helmdon for Sulgrave" on the long abandoned Great
Central railway. It opened in 1897, was later taken over
by the LNER and closed in 1966. There are currently moves
to re-open the line for freight. Below the station the line
runs on an embankment and then crosses the valley on the nine
arch Great Central viaduct which crosses the Helmdon
brook, and was built during the 1890s. At the bottom of
the road Grange Lane has a tunnel under the embankment to
reach Grange Farm.
The School Buildings on Station
Road |
On the right at the bottom of the hill,
you will find Helmdon County Primary
School. This much regarded school has well over 100 pupils,
some quarter of them from villages and towns outside Helmdon.
Until as recently as 1992 a public house stood opposite called
the Chequers, dating
from around 1760.
The Bell, Helmdon's last
remaining pub |
Now turn right up Church Street. The
Bell is not far up the road.
So called in earlier times because it was the nearest alehouse
in the village to the church, it is the only pub in the village
today.
Shortly you will see the
Reading Room where many of the village activities take
place. The Reading Room is the focus
for many of the groups
in the village and is the venue for many of their activities
and events.
The Old Bakehouse
on Church Street |
Walking on up Church Street, you reach
on the right the Old Bakehouse,
still open in the 1950s for villagers wanting newly baked
bread.
The parish church of
St Mary Magdalene, on the highest ground in the village,
has stood by its old yew for many hundreds of years.
St Mary Magdalene Church |
Fourteenth-century stained glass commemorates
one of its stonemasons. There
are six bells in the church tower of which the oldest is dated
1679, and over the centuries they have been rung to call people
to services, as well as in times of war, peace and celebration.
The present Manor Farm house |
Up past the church is
Manor Farm (left) near where one of the early manor houses
presumably stood. Early
history suggests that Helmdon was once divided between
three manorial holdings and had no great squire. Just to the
south-east is Falcutt House.
The Great Central Railway
viaduct |
After retracing your steps down Church
Street, turn right. To your left can be seen Helmdon's famous
landmark, the Great Central viaduct.
Under it ran the little valley railway known as the "nibble
and clink" or LMS railway
line. Along this small valley line cattle and coal went
to Banbury and Northampton markets. Its old station on the
right is now a Coach Depot,
and just ahead is a small road bridge over the abandoned line.
The war memorial |
The village is proud of its war
memorial and in 1996, 1999 and 2002 set up the Village
of the Year trophy alongside it.
Just on the left, along the Sulgrave Road, can be seen Priory
Farm, which in Charles II's reign was the largest house in
Helmdon. It has a fine long barn.
The long barn at Priory Farm |
On each side of the Weston Road were
the old stone quarries, which produced the pale Helmdon
stone for so many years. The building material was used
for many of the local houses as well as for much more famous
ones.
Wappenham
Road, Helmdon |
On the right, as you go up Wappenham
Road, is Fountain House,
a late nineteenth-century brick house. In the 1990s it was
the venue of the drama group, the Bridge
Players, summer productions.
Just beyond, Magpie Cottage used to be the Magpie
public house. It prospered while it catered for the drinking
needs of the navvies employed on the Great Central Railway
in the 1890s, and closed soon after.
A
little way up on the left is the Old House, fronted by a
long abandoned shop, a flourishing butcher's business in
the 30s.
Further up on the same side of the road is the mid-nineteenth
century Baptist Chapel,
now closed and awaiting re-development.
Above the little hill is Home Farm, the only fully working
farm left inside the village. Some farmhouses were built
outside the village as a result of the mid-eighteenth century
enclosure of the open
fields, and the land is still worked from them.
You will soon reach the bend (which is called "the square")
and on the right is Long Acre.
Cross Lane leads by the house called The
Old Manor, and thence to the Old
Cross, which used to be a public house. Here, and in
several houses in Cross Lane, are stone
features obviously cut for more prestigious houses and used
here because the masons had them left on their hands.
The footpath to Astwell
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Three deserted villages,
Falcutt,
Stuchbury
and Astwell lie on the fringes
of Helmdon.
The village straddles a network of old footpaths,
routes to Weston and Weedon Lois, and Wappenham, Radstone,
Whitfield, Astwell, Crowfield, Halse, Falcutt, Stuchbury and
Sulgrave. The central ones are much used.
If you have comments about this trail, please send them to:
webmaster@helmdon.com.
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