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A BRIEF HISTORY OF BARFORD
Prehistoric Barford
A fascinating mix of people have lived in and around Barford from Neolithic
through Roman and Anglo-Saxon times up to the present day. The area attracted
Neolithic (New Stone Age) people who left traces of their lives, such
as stone flint tools and pottery, in this area nearly 5000 years ago.
They hunted and gathered food like their ancestors but also kept animals
and grew crops. Just outside Barford lay a 4000 year old “henge”,
rather like Stonehenge but without the stones, the size of four tennis
courts. The Bronze Age (2500 - 700BC) saw further areas of woodland cleared
and people discovered how to use an alloy of tin and copper to make tools
and axes. There is evidence of a Bronze Age burial barrow at the Oldhams’ site.
About
900 BC there was a great immigration of Celtic speaking people into Britain.
By the Iron Age (800 BC - 43 AD) people had developed the skills
to work iron which was much tougher and more durable than bronze.
There was a large well-documented Iron Age Settlement west of Half Moon
Plantation,
now under the M40. A splendid and well-preserved Iron Age Fort
may be seen in Oakley Woods indicating considerable activity in the area.
Romano-British
period; the beginning of history
Julius Caesar invaded Britain in 55 and 54BC but it was not until
a hundred years later that Emperor Claudius arrived and conquered.
Following occasional rebellions such as that of Boudicca in 61AD, direct
Roman rule
was imposed and the druid religion ruthlessly eradicated. In
villages such as Barford, the inhabitants would probably have continued
to scratch
a living much as they had done before the invasion. By the 4th
century, the hold of the Romans was becoming tenuous and Britain had
been largely
abandoned by 410 AD.
Out of the frying pan …….
With no help forthcoming from the departed Romans, desperate Britons
invited over the Saxons to assist in their fight against the Picts
and Scots. However, once these had been subdued, the Saxons turned their
weapons on
the Britons. They eventually divided the whole country into seven
kingdoms. Warwickshire lay in Mercia - a name that persisted for 300 years
and which
was later divided into shires or counties.
The Saxons probably
formed the first recognisable community at Barford. At this time much of
central Britain
would have been woodland without roads or bridges. Early settlers
would have soon discovered the shallow crossing or ford near today’s bridge
and this gradually became recognised as a reliable crossing over which a
load of barley or other grain could be carried - hence the name “Barford”.
The original settlement would have occupied today’s Bridge Street,
Church Street and High Street with farming beginning on the higher ground.
The Anglo-Saxon language (old English) was quite Germanic and lasted as
the common language of England until the time of the Norman Conquest in
1066. The society would have had a tribal organisation with everyone sharing
in the task of clearing forest and shrub land for cultivation and the produce
being shared.
These early farmers worked an “open field system” with
each man’s holding consisting of scattered long narrow strips of half
an acre or more separated by furrows for drainage. This system
lasted for almost another 750 years. It is thought that a type
of crop rotation was
probably practised and around Barford there are many excellent
examples of this once-arable cultivated land now used as pasture.
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The Norman
invasion and beyond
The Norman invasion of 1066 brought about massive changes. Land
was taken away from the Anglo-Saxon overlords, given to William’s
barons and a feudal organisation imposed. A comprehensive survey
of the settlement was recorded in Domesday Book of 1086. Barford thus
came under
the control of successive “Lords of the Manor”. First were
the de Bereford family, followed by the Naffords. The Verdon
family held another Manor from 1212 till 1385 when it passed to Lord Willoughby
de
Broke and the Earls of Warwick. Early in the thirteenth century,
lands in Barford were given by Henry de Bereford to the canons of Thelsford
Priory. By 1332, the friars were the largest landowners in the
village.
They had a large farm or “Grange” opposite St Peter’s
church.
The Lords of the Manor leased land to their tenants and at the bottom
of the social pile were the serfs who lived like slaves in hovels, unable
to
escape as they were forced to wear a metal identity collar. They
could be called upon to till the land and to grind their corn at the manorial
mill,
do construction work or fight for their lord as required and even
had to seek their lord’s permission for their daughters to many. Better placed
were the “borders or cottars” who possessed some rights to cultivate
the open fields and graze their animals but had to work on certain
days for the Lord of the Manor.
By 1538, Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries
and Thelsford Priory estates were acquired by a lawyer named Thomas
Ward(e) who built a magnificent timber-framed
house known as Barford Hall, on the site of the Priory Grange.
In the late 1700s, Charles Warde sold the estate to the 2nd Earl
of Warwick and the
house was demolished.
The Ward family sold the right to the living at Barford
to Revd. John Mills who was installed as Rector in 1745. He had two sons,
Francis and Charles
and by 1812 about two thirds of the lands in Barford were in their
hands. Francis succeeded his father as Rector holding this position for
56 years.
Charles became MP for Warwick holding his seat for six parliaments.
In the
course of time, the principle inhabitant of the parish came to be known as
the “squire”, an example being the Ward family. The
Fairfax family later lived in a manor house on the land which used to be
the recreation ground but is now Fairfax Close. Incidentally a descendent,
Robert Fairfax, inaugurated the “Leamington Courier”.
The recreation
ground mentioned above lasted until 1938 when the King George V Jubilee
Trust Fund enabled the present playing field to be acquired as a permanent
open space. If the squire was also the parson he would be known as the “Squarson”.
An example was Revd. Cecil Mills who lived in the Rectory, now the Glebe
Hotel and who died in 1902. As Squire he had the special right to own a
dovecote to provide much needed fresh meat in winter. Charles Smith-Ryland
of Barford Hill was known as ‘squire” until his death when the
term fell into disuse as being inappropriate for the late 20th
Century.
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Bridges and roads
In 1339, a document refers to “the ford at Barford”, the river
crossing point important since Anglo-Saxon times. The first record of a
medieval bridge is in 1484 and was described by Leland in 1540,as “a
greate stone bridge over the Avon consisting of “eight fayre arches”.
Ireland’s “Warwickshire Avon” published in 1795, tells
of the building of the present bridge in sandstone by the architect Henry
Couchman, the County Bridgemaster, at a cost of just over £2,400.
It replaced a Gothic one with seven arches and a small tower at its northern
end which was falling into decay.
The route into Warwick lay through the
Castle Park, past the “Hunting Lodge”, across Leyfields Bridge,
built in 1772, emerging at the bottom of West Street. Sadly this road was
closed to villagers in 1800 by the Earl of Warwick who paid compensation
of £5 a year in the form of coal to be distributed to the poor of
the parish.
Another route into Warwick used to run from the Asps across
the Castle Park and over the now collapsed stone bridge at the bottom of
Mill Street. The Ram Inn was to be found in the park strategically positioned
to refresh thirsty travellers. In 1761, a dam was constructed to form a
lake known to this day as “New Water”.
The present-day route
of the Banbury Road was opened in 1782 when the “new” bridge
over the Avon was completed. This gave villagers easier access
to Whitnash, which, like Warwick, was an important trading centre
with markets twice
a week.
In 1686 the main route from Barford to Wasperton ran from near Forge
Cottage following the river to the present Memorial Oak tree. At this time
the maintenance
of the present A429 was the responsibility of the parishes through
which it ran but in 1750 a “Turnpike Trust” was formed which
took over this responsibility and there were toll gates every five
miles The
Trusts continued until 1872 when they were dissolved and the Longbridge
Toll House was relocated to Church Lane in Barford as the Lodge
to Watchbury.
End of the open fields
The Enclosure Act of 1761 took away from villagers the long-held
right to farm under the strip system and from then the parish
began to take on its present day appearance. Inevitably as the strips were
incorporated
into large fields many villagers lost their source of food production,
so “allotments” of land of about two or three acres were made
available to them. The Church allotments date back to the 1760s
when they were given to the church in exchange for meadow land at Westham.
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Church
The ancient religion of the Druids had been ruthlessly eradicated
by the Romans. It was temporarily replaced by the more barbarous
superstitions of the Saxons who practiced sacrifices and believed in
spells. In 618
AD, Pope Gregory I sent a Roman missionary called Paulinus to
preach Christianity to the Anglo-Saxons of Mercia. Many were converted
and Paulinus became
the first Archbishop of York. The heathen temples that remained
were reconsecrated and the pagan festivals transformed into Christian
occasions. In nearby
Wasperton there are over 200 Christian and pagan burial sites
along the course of the river Avon indicating that the communities lived
side by
side.
It was probably at this time that the first Christian church, dedicated
to St Peter, was built in Barford. Certainly by the time of Domesday
survey in 1086 we know that there was a thriving church on the present
site as
evidenced by the mention of a resident priest. The Saxon church
was rebuilt in the early 1200s and the list of incumbents stretches back
to 1281.
The church building stood unchanged for over four hundred and fifty
years and the tower is a good example of those built in this district with
Warwick
sandstone about 600 years ago. It has architectural features similar
to those of the chancel of St. Mary’s Church Warwick and the same masons
may have been employed. There are shot marks on the sides of the
tower believed to have been made in 1642 by the Parliamentary soldiers marching
towards
Kineton before the battle at Edgehill. The four pinnacles on the
tower were removed for safety reasons in 1840 and the church, except for
the tower,
was re-built and enlarged in 1845.
In 1958 the parish of Wasperton was
joined to Barford and in 1978 Sherbourne was assimilated to form the united
benefice of Barford with Wasperton and
Sherbourne. In the churchyard, close to the line of yew trees,
lies the grave of Joseph Arch (1826 - 1919), Barford’s most celebrated
citizen. He was born and died in the cottage opposite the church.
…… .
and Chapel - the non-conformist movement
The Baptists were active in Warwick as early as the 1640’s and several
Barford villagers are known to have joined them. The Methodist
movement in particular appealed greatly to the agricultural workers. The
Wesleyan
Methodists, run by ordained clerics, and the Primitive Methodists,
which were lay-led, both had chapels in Earford. The Wesleyan Chapel was
erected
in 1840 at 48, Church Street. The Primitive Methodist chapel, which
Joseph Arch probably attended, is to be found at 20, Church Street.
Arch’s skill as a lay-preacher was to stand him in good stead in
his turbulent political life. By 1835, the plight of the agricultural labourers
was dire. As Joseph Arch wrote in his autobiography: “With bowed head
and bended knee, the poor learned to receive from the rich what was really
their due”. Arch was a remarkable pioneer for better conditions and
he founded the Agricultural Labourers Union and became MP for Sandringham
between 1882 - 1900. His memorial is still the focus of an annual
pilgrimage in June by trades unionists. Not bad for a Barfordian
who left school at
nine years of age!
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Social Matters
The villagers of Barford in earlier days would have been used to
quaffing ale at any time of the day. There were three malt barns
where the locally grown barley would have been germinated and the sugar extracted
by maltsters for fermenting. Many people kept bees as there was
no other
sweetener available than honey and this would be made into mead — a
popular drink at festivities. About twelve drinking establishments
with unlimited opening hours were listed around 1810.
The Granville Arms (now “The Granville”) was named
after Rev. Edward Granville, vicar of Wasperton from 1900. At that
time the boundary of the two parishes lay at Wasperton Lane but
Barford boundary was extended to take in the expanded village in
the late 1940s when the Council estate was built.
The Joseph Arch was formerly
called “The Red Lion” and changed
its name in April 1960. It had two loose boxes and a stall so that
the horses pulling the Leamington to Stratford coach could be changed.
This horse drawn
service continued until 1907.
The inscription ‘George Inn’ can be clearly seen on the upper
storey brickwork of a house in Bridge Street and close by would have been
the Bridge Inn. The Wheatsheaf Inn was in High Street opposite the old forge,
New Inn in Wellesbourne Road, The Ram in Warwick Park, Lord Nelson, Butchers’ Arms,
Royal Oak, Pig and Puppies and the Anchor showed how well-served
thirsty Barfordians were in times past.
Before the Welfare State came into
being, very many villagers subscribed to Friendly Societies. The
Forresters had their HQ at the Granville Arms
while the Oddfellows were based at the Red Lion. Club Days involved
processions followed by much feasting and dancing. May Day was
also celebrated by the
children dancing round a maypole and around the village.
In the 1850s, directories
of the village listed five maltsters, five shoemakers, five carpenters,
three tailors, a saddler, a wheelwright, a coachbuilder,
a cooper making barrels, a basket and sieve-maker, a cattle doctor
etc There were two blacksmiths forges in the village, the last ceasing
to function
in 1978. Many villagers kept pigs and chickens and the Pig Club
survived until the late 1850s
The mill at Barford was mentioned in Domesday
Book and by 1692 there were four. The last watermill at Avonside had equipment
installed to generate
electric power in a similar way to the mill at Warwick Castle.
210 volt power was delivered to some householders and it was also used
to illuminate
street lights as early as 1917. The mill became unsafe and by 1925
a new mill had been built making animal foodstuffs. This was an important
source
of local employment. The village was fortunate too in having its
own gas works, established in 1872 on the present Oldhams site. This provided
fuel
for domestic use as well as street lighting. It closed in 1920
leaving behind a legacy of contaminated land which will have to be cleared
if the site
were ever to be used for building.
The transport firm was originally started
by a member of the Oldham family who had farmed in Barford for over a century.
He used the premises of the
former wheelwright in Bridge Street to start a tractor business.
He and his engineer later designed and constructed a cattle truck for transporting
livestock which formerly had had to be herded along roads by a
drover and
his dog. In time the firm expanded, switched to domestic removals
and HGV maintenance and came to the present site.
More recent times
Barford has been home to several notable people in the twentieth
century. Billie Whitelaw was evacuated here from Coventry in the 1940s
and Patrick Stewart has fond memories of his days in the village. Jeff
Healey of sports car fame also lived in Barford. Inevitably, the nature
of the village has changed. The village is populated now, not by agricultural
workers, but by a good social mix of young families and retired persons,
those who work from home and those who commute to neighbouring towns.
Despite the pressures of modern living, Barford remains a thriving and
caring community.
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