Patrick Comerford
Stoke Bruerne in West Northamptonshire is a pretty village along the banks of a canal, half way between Stony Stratford to the south (13 km or 8 miles) and Northampton to the north (11 km or 7 miles). I had wanted to visit it for many years, mainly to explore its past connections with the Comberford family in the 15th and 16th centuries, and I finally got there last week.
Stoke Bruerne is a small village with a population of fewer than 400 people. Its pretty setting by the Grand Union Canal, the many canal locks in the area, the thatched cottages on the Green, the well-signed public walks, and its welcoming pubs and museum all combine to make it an attractive place for visitors throughout the year.
There are frequent short trips on barges on the canal, and the Blisworth Tunnel is a major attraction. The Blisworth Tunnel, which re-opened ten years ago (22 August 2014), is 2,812 metres (3,075 yards) long and is the longest wide, freely navigable tunnel in Europe.
The canal is busy with boats going through the locks constantly and in and out of the tunnel regularly. During the summer days, a variety of boat trips are available along the canal. The village attracts many visitors all year round and especially during the summer months, and there are two canal-side pubs in Stoke Bruerne – the Boat Inn on the west bank, and the Navigation on the east bank.
Three of us took a half mile barge trip on the ‘Charlie’ north along the canal as far as the south entrance to the Blisworth Tunnel, before enjoying lunch and the Navigation.
The parish is divided into two hamlets, Stoke Bruerne in the east and Shutlanger in the west. Both hamlets were inclosed in 1844 and the modern boundary between the two was settled in the mid-19th century, with Stoke Bruerne civil parish containing 1,270 acres, and Shutlanger 1,363 acres.
Stoke Bruerne is named in the Domesday Book in 1086 as ‘Stoche’, meaning ‘an outlying farmstead or hamlet’. A water-mill, recorded in 1086, stood on the stream to the north of the village, alongside the lane leading towards Blisworth.
But Stoke Bruerne is much older, and a large Roman villa near the road from Stoke and Ashton was partially excavated in the 1960s. The site of the earliest post-Roman settlement in the parish is indicated by the position of the parish church, which stands on high ground on the west edge of Stoke village, near an Iron Age settlements and also close to a burial site, assumed to be Saxon, was found ca 1910.
The older part of the village lies entirely to the east of the church, on either side of a stream that flows south from Blisworth Hill to the Tove, where the four roads leading to Ashton, the London road, Shutlanger and Blisworth meet.
Earthworks on the east edge of the existing built-up area, to both the north and south of the Ashton road, suggest that in the Middle Ages settlement extended a little further in that direction than was the case by the early 18th century, when the community was mapped for the first time.
The name ‘Stokbruer’ is used in 1254, being a suffix by the ‘Briwere’ family of the Manor House. In 1301, 43 households were assessed to the lay subsidy in Stoke Bruerne and 40 in Shutlanger. The two townships remained much the same size in the 1520s.
The mediaeval lords of Stoke Bruerne including members of the de Harrowden, de Combemartin and Knightley families. But Stoke Bruerne lacked a resident lord, both in the Middle Ages and later, and there is no evidence for a capital messuage associated with the manor in the village.
The older cottages and former farmhouses were originally all thatched, as a number are today.
A park was created to the south of the village in 1529-1530, and more land was added to it after the manor was annexed to the honor of Grafton in 1542. In the following years, crown tenants in both Stoke and Shutlanger were compensated for lost common arable and the rector offered a composition for lost tithes.
The manor of Stoke Bruerne descended with the rest of the honor of Grafton until 1987, when it was among the manorial titles from the honor offered for sale. The manor of Alderton was not included in this sale and was retained by the Duke of Grafton.
A house on the Green known as the Old Dower House is dated 1636, and many of the other older houses in the village seem to date from the same period.
The lane leading to the parish church, Saint Mary’s, is still recognisable as an ancient hollow way. The church, was described in both 1254 and 1291, but dates mainly from the 14th and 15th centuries.
The church consists of a nave, chancel, west tower, north and south aisles and south porch. The tower, except for its Perpendicular top stage, seems to date from the early 12th century. The arch between tower and nave dates from ca 1200.
The nave and both aisles were rebuilt together in the later 14th century. The chancel screen is 15th century; there is a rood-loft entrance on the north side and external access by a staircase. Although the church was locked when we visited, I understand the interesting internal features include a late mediaeval squint, a piscina adjoins, and the nave clerestory.
The plain octagonal font is perhaps of the 13th or 14th century. The chancel stalls are 19th century, incorporating two late medieval bench ends and 18th century altar rails. There are several late mediaeval wall monuments and ledger-slabs.
The church was repaired in 1843 and restored in 1865. A new east window was installed in 1877 in memory of a former rector, the Revd Philip Henry Lee. A vestry and organ-chamber designed by the Stony Stratford architect Edward Swinfen Harris, were added on the south side of the chancel in 1881. A new baptistry designed by Matthew Holding was added in 1901, and the interior was restored.
There was a priest at Stoke Bruerne in 1086 who held land there of Swain son of Azor. The first-known incumbent, Richard de Rof, took office in 1217, when the patron was William Briwere. The advowson descended with the manor until the death of William de Combemartin in 1318 and the division of Stoke between his three daughters. Some of the medieval incumbents were drawn from local gentry families and on occasion were members of the same families as the lords of Stoke Bruerne.
The whole of the manor and advowson were acquired by the Crown in the early 16th century, and in 1551 the advowson was granted to William Parr (1513-1571), Marquess of Northampton, the only brother of Queen Catherine Parr, sixth and final wife of Henry VIII. It reverted to the Crown when he was attainted by Queen Mary two years later, and Queen Elizabeth I presented to the living in 1559.
The advowsons of Stoke, Blisworth, Cottingham and Great Billing were granted to Sir Christopher Hatton in 1579. These interests then passed through the Hatton family until 1676, when they were sold to Brasenose College, Oxford.
The most notable Rector of Stoke Bruerne was probably Peter Gunning (1614-1684), rector from 1660 to 1669. He was a staunch royalist during the Civil War and both a noted theologian and prolific author. From 1660, he was also Master of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and was appointed Lady Margaret’s Professor of Divinity. He became Master of Saint John’s College, Cambridge, in 1661 and was elected Regius Professor of Divinity (1661-1674). During those years, he was also Rector of Cottesmore, Rutland, and a canon of Canterbury Cathedral. He became Bishop of Chichester in 1669 and Bishop of Ely in 1674.
Edward Cardwell (1787-1861), Rector from 1828 to 1831, was Camden Professor of Ancient History at Oxford (1825-1861). In 1831, he succeeded Archbishop Richard Whately of Dublin as the principal of St Alban Hall, later merged with Merton College. He edited Aristotle’s Ethica and wrote several works on Greek and Roman coinage and theology.
Cardwell’s successor, the Revd Philip Henry Lee, was rector for 40 years, from 1836 to 1876. During his lengthy incumbency, he established infant schools in Stoke Bruerne and Shutlanger. A schoolroom was built in Stoke Bruerne in the late 1830s was enlarged in 1880-1882.
The parish of Stoke Bruerne was united with Grafton Regis and Alderton in 1953, and later with Blisworth. The parish is in the Diocese of Peterborough.
Canon Richard Stainer has been the Rector of Blisworth, Alderton, Grafton Regis, Milton Malsor and Stoke Bruerne with Shutlanger (the Grand Union Benefice) since 2019. Sunday services in Saint Mary’s are at 9:30 on the second Sundays (Family Eucharist) and fourth Sundays (Family Service).
The Grand Junction Canal, which began in 1793 as an improved trunk route between London and Birmingham, was completed in 1805. It enters the parish by an aqueduct over a tributary of the Tove half a mile north of Twyford Bridge and continues north to Stoke village. Beyond, it enters Blisworth Tunnel, through which the canal passes beneath the high ground between Stoke and Blisworth.
The arrival of the canal was important in both reshaping the layout of Stoke and bringing new economic activity. After the opening of the canal, Stoke continued to grow more modestly to a peak of 469 in 1851; Shutlanger’s 19th-century growth peaked at 403 a generation later in 1881. The canal continues to play an important part in the life of the community.
Stoke Bruerne once had its own railway station – which was misnamed Stoke Bruern. The station on the line from Towcester to Olney opened in 1891, but the line finally closed in 1958, and the former station building has been converted into a private house.
The nearby country estate of Stoke Park is on Shutlanger Road. Stoke Park was the first English country house to display a Palladian plan. The house was destroyed by fire in the late 19th century, and was replaced with a large Neo-Jacobean building.
It was bought in 1928 by an Irish aristocrat, Captain Edward Brabazon Meade (1878-1963), a son of Richard Meade, 4th Earl of Clanwilliam. He borrowed heavily to restore the estate, but found it a financial burden and left Stoke in 1937.
The mansion and grounds were requisitioned by the army during World War II. Meade later moved to the Bahamas, and sold the estate in 1946. The Neo-Jacobean mansion was empty and in poor condition and was largely demolished in the late 1940s.
The new owners refused to carry out repairs to the 17th century pavilions, instead offering to sell them to the National Trust or the county council. Stoke Park is occasionally open to the public in August, but all that remains of the main house are the two east and west wings known as Stoke Park Pavilions.
One of my reasons for wanting to visit Stoke Bruerne for so long is a Comberford family connection dating from the 15th and 16th centuries. William Comberford was entrusted with keeping the estates in Northamptonshire of Margaret Catesby, the widow of John Parles (1419-1452), when she died in 1459.
Those estates included lands in Watford, Stoke Bruerne and Shutlanger, near Stoke Bruerne, and her daughter Johanna Parles became William Comberford’s ward. Later Johanna Parles married William’s son, John Comberford (1440-1508), and the Comberford family estates and wealth were enlarged and enriched. Their son, Thomas Comberford, sold the former Parles estates, including over 364 acres in Stoke Bruerne, Shutlanger, Alderton and Wappenham, to Richard Empson of Easton Neston.
The Parles family had a lasting influence on the fortunes of the Comberford family, reflected even in the changes made to the Comberford family coat of arms over the generations.
However, to see any remaining signs of the former Parles and Comberford estates in the Stoke Bruerne area, I needed to visit the neighbouring small village of Shutlanger.
Four Minutes on the Canal at Stoke Bruerne (Patrick Comerford, 2024)
