Culworth - stand and deliver!
By Laura Malpas
I’m always surprised by the variety of landscapes within Northamptonshire. Each has its charms, the green valleys filled with reed beds and flowing rivers, and the rolling hills with waving woodland and wheat fields are spectacular, but I think my favourite might be the steep rocky landscapes with toffee-coloured stone villages hidden around every corner. This month I’m in south-west Northamptonshire exploring one of those pretty villages, a location with a long history, including some dark tales of violence and crime.
Archaeology shows that settlement at Culworth is ancient, and certainly pre-Roman. Investigations reveals Bronze age barrows nearby, and an Iron Age enclosure with pottery dating back to between 400 – 200 BCE, and traces of Roman and Saxon occupation hint at continuous occupation. The name probably refers either to its position at the top of a hill, ‘Cul’ in Old English, and ‘worth’ referring to an enclosed settlement, or possibly it refers to a person who once lived there, ‘Cula’s enclosure’. Situated on high ground at the crossroads of two ancient drovers’ ways, Banbury Lane and Welsh Lane, it was a practical location to cater for the needs of travellers and their stock.
The earliest reference to Culworth comes in 1086 AD, where the Domesday Bool records a manor of 15 households, with the primary tenant being Geoffrey De Mandeville, one of William the Conqueror’s most important and wealthiest Lords.
Its strategic location certainly was appreciated by the Normans who built a ringwork castle consisting of a substantial dry moat enclosing a raised area for wooden structures. The castle remains unexcavated but is very similar to that found at nearby Sulgrave. Domesday records that a Saxon named Landric held both sites.
Directly adjacent to the castle, it is possible that the Normans also built a wooden church, possibly on the site of a pre-existing Saxon church. When the strategic need for the castle passed after 1200 AD, the current church dedicated to St Mary was built in stone. Over the years it was added to by benefactors, notably the Danvers family whose presence is still seen in their finely carved memorials. The Victorian period saw unusually sympathetic restoration and rebuilding of the church, including some excellent stained glass designed by Augustus Pugin. Today, the well maintained and pretty country church has an active community and is well worth a visit at the same time as the castle. And pause to admire the spectacularly lovely Old Rectory, now in private hands.
A wander around the rest of the village will allow you to take in the other fine old buildings, humble cottages and grand houses. Many, such as the Old Manor, date back to the 17th century with banded stonework of creamy limestone and golden ironstone. These may well have seen the painful conflict of the English Civil Wars as Culworth was on the border of areas supporting both Parliamentarians and the King. Charles I reputedly slept at the Od Manor the night before the Battle of Edgehill in 1642.
Following the Restoration, records show the well-off prospered, but the poor got poorer, needing support from the Parish. Enclosure of common land and taxation during the 18th century meant that old ways had to change. Up to half the small farmers were out of work, and increased mechanisation reduced the requirement for agricultural labourers. Many folks left the countryside for the towns to search out a living and found that competition was reducing wages. For many, emigration or crime seemed the only options.
“The beginning of the end came as two of the gang were drinking in a pub in Towcester, boasting of having won whilst cockfighting at Blakesley. The landlord spotted that their bags contained smocks and masks, not gamecocks, and eventually alerted the Constable. The men were arrested and a warrant issued to search their homes and hideouts, revealing many identifiable stolen goods.”
Industrialisation had led to an increasing need for efficient transportation, and the old drovers’ ways that had served so well needed significant updating. To cover the costs of construction and maintenance of better roads, turnpike roads with tolls were introduced. Travel was faster, easier, but more expensive so turnpikes were used mainly by the wealthy who could afford to travel in comfort. They also presented a tempting target for the less fortunate. The location of Culworth, central to a national network of lanes and byways, yet bypassed by the turnpike, made access and escape routes easy. This prompted a dark time in Culworth’s rural community.
The temptation proved too much to resist. Some fifteen local men met to plan what came to be known as the Culworth Gang. They included John Smith, a labourer ‘of great bodily strength and daring energy of character’, William Pettifer, father to six hungry children and William Abbot, shoemaker and Clerk of Sulgrave Parish.
Local pubs were used for their meetings, such as the Red Lion at Culworth and the Star Inn at Sulgrave. It’s hard to believe that the landlords didn’t suspect what was going on as local lads were paid to be informants, letting the gang know if wealthy folk were passing through the area.
Their reputation was intimidating. Working on moonlit nights in twos and threes, several assaults could take place simultaneously. With blackened faces, fawn smocks and black hoods and masks to disguise themselves, they went armed with flintlock pistols, blunderbuss, clubs and swords to encourage immediate compliance from their victims. English laws of the time made their choices simpler. The threshold for the death penalty if caught and convicted was so low that they felt uninhibited, they might well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.
Their preferred plunder was coin, jewellery, and expensive clothing, anything lightweight and easy to carry. But things which could be easily sold and difficult to trace were also taken, such as cutlery, candlesticks, pots and pans. Famously they also burgled and terrorised wealthy families up to twenty miles away, and took to stealing sheep and cattle, even chickens.
Most highwaymen had relatively short careers, but because of their careful planning the Culworth Gang’s reign of terror lasted for some twenty years. Locals didn’t report on them even if they knew, perhaps because the gang also seem to have given food to the needy in exchange for silence. However, to the local businessmen and gentry they were an embarrassing menace.
The beginning of the end came as two of the gang were drinking in a pub in Towcester, boasting of having won whilst cockfighting at Blakesley. The landlord spotted that their bags contained smocks and masks, not gamecocks, and eventually alerted the Constable. The men were arrested and a warrant issued to search their homes and hideouts, revealing many identifiable stolen goods.
The two men were ‘strongly pressed’ to confess, and they revealed knowledge of thirty crimes believed to have been committed by the Culworth Gang. The game collapsed, and ten men and one woman were imprisoned in Northampton Gaol accused of forty-seven crimes. One of them had ‘turned King’s Evidence’ by confessing in the hopes of mediating his punishment. This was William Abbot the shoemaker and Clerk to Sulgrave Parish. The church was searched and inside the church chest where important records were stored, valuable stolen goods were found concealed. The rest of the gang fled or remained hidden.
In the Summer Assizes of 1787 held at the Sessions House in Northampton, four men were sentenced to hang, and William Abbot was sentenced to transportation to Australia as a reward for his evidence, one of the first to be so. The rest were freed for lack of evidence.
On 3 August 1787 the four convicts, including John Smith and William Pettifer were taken to the gallows situated next to the Northampton Racecourse where the White Elephant Pub is now located. Five thousand spectators came to watch their grisly end.
This difficult past casts no shadows over the pretty village today. The Red Lion pub which once catered to the Gang is a great place to visit. The Forge which perhaps shod the highwaymen’s horses now serves excellent coffee, and the local butcher is famed for his meats. The village also has a wonderful Diamond Jubilee clock made by the blacksmith.
But if you want to follow in the footsteps of the Gang, walk along the ancient greenways and byways. Perhaps here you might hear the distant cry ‘Stand and Deliver’.
To learn more, please read the excellent book The Culworth Gang by Richard Blacklee. ISBN:978-1-83563-047-1
