Grafton Regis
| Grafton Regis | |||
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| Coordinates | 52 ° 7 ′ N , 0 ° 54 ′ W | ||
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| Residents | 100 (as of: 2001) | ||
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| Part of the country | England | ||
| region | East Midlands | ||
| Shire county | Northamptonshire | ||
| Unitary authority | Northants | ||
| District | South Northamptonshire | ||
Grafton Regis is a town in Great Britain . The small village with only about 30 houses is located in the East Midlands in the south of Northamptonshire and belongs to the District of South Northamptonshire .
geography
The village is 14 km north of Milton Keynes and 13 km south of Northampton east and south of the River Tove . The village consists of three streets that enclose a triangular village green. The western road is the A508 which runs through the village. The Grand Union Canal runs east of the village .
history
In the Domesday Book , Grastone is mentioned with only one household. From about 1100 to 1348 the village was owned by the Abbey of Grestain in Normandy in France before it fell to the de la Pole family, the Earls of Suffolk . At the beginning of the 13th century, the Wydeville family settled in the village, who took over the village from the Earls of Suffolk around 1440. The village was named Grafton Woodville after the family . From the 14th century onwards, several members of the family such as Thomas and Richard Wydeville held the office of Sheriff of Northamptonshire on several occasions and represented the county as members of the House of Commons . Richard Woodville was made Baron Rivers in 1448 , in May 1464 the English King Edward IV secretly married his daughter Elizabeth in Grafton Regis and had her crowned queen in 1465. The place fell to the descendants of Elizabeth Woodville's first marriage, who had been raised to Marquess of Dorset .
The English King Henry VIII came to Grafton Regis for the first time in 1526 . In 1528 he acquired the manor house and had it converted into a royal hunting lodge . Until at least 1545 he came frequently, sometimes even several times a year, to Grafton Regis to hunt in the adjacent Grafton Park. He also received foreign envoys and the papal legate Lorenzo Campeggi in the hunting lodge. The king had the village renamed Grafton Regis and raised it to the Honor of Grafton in 1537 . Henry VIII was the only English monarch to use the hunting lodge for himself. Queen Elizabeth I leased the property to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester , among others , whom she visited three times in Grafton Regis. Her successor, King James I, leased the mansion to Ludovic Stewart, 2nd Duke of Lennox , whom he also visited several times. In 1624 the house was mortgaged to Sir Francis Crane , who had large parts of the manor demolished. During the English Civil War in 1643 it was destroyed by parliamentary troops, who also caused serious damage to the village itself.
At the beginning of the 20th century, a portrait that she had saved from destruction was rediscovered in a farmhouse where Sir Francis Crane's widow had lived during the siege in 1643. It supposedly depicts the young Shakespeare and is known as the Grafton Portrait .
After the English Civil War, King Charles II gave the Honor of Grafton in 1665 to his wife, Queen Catherine of Braganza . When the marriage remained childless, the King Grafton bequeathed 1673 to his illegitimate son Henry FitzRoy , whom he raised to Duke of Grafton in 1675 . His descendants still hold the title today.
Because of its numerous historical and partly still thatched houses the small village was founded in 1991 as a Conservation Area under monument protection provided.
Attractions
- The parish church of St Mary the Virgin is mentioned for the first time in 1189, the current building dates from the 13th to 15th centuries and was restored in the 19th century.
- The former village school built in 1873 was closed in 1934. The building in neo- Tudor style has been restored and now serves as a community hall for public use.
- Grafton Manor was partially rebuilt after being destroyed in 1643. In the 18th century it served as a farmhouse. Further renovations took place in the 19th century, after the Second World War it was initially used as a school and today as a private hospital.
- The thatched roof The White Hart Pub dates back to the late 17th century.
Web links
- Internet presence of the village
- South Northants: Grafton Regis Conservation Area
- British History Online: Grafton Regis
Individual evidence
- ^ Brain Injury Services, Northampton - Grafton Manor. Retrieved March 30, 2015 .