Great Horwood

Only one prehistoric find has come to light in Great Horwood parish, that of a flake of a Palaeolithic flint hand-axe from Fir Tree Cottage. There are lots of Roman remains in the parish, though. The presence of two Roman camps was assumed on the common of Great Horwood and Roman pottery and tile was found after enclosure in the nineteenth century on the first turning of the plough. Roman pottery has also been found near the church, at Cross Roads Farm and in Singleborough. There is also known to have been a Roman road running through the parish.

Some possible Anglo-Saxon boundary banks and ditches have been recorded in field survey or are mentioned in a tenth century charter at Whitman’s Grove, College Wood and near Upper Shelspit Farm. The Domesday book also records that Singleborough was a separate manor, as was Mychel Horwood, which seems to have been near Briars Bank Farm. There are earthworks of medieval villages on The Common in Great Horwood and around Singleborough, where there was a chapel, recorded in the fifteenth century and possible located in field survey and excavation. Manor Farm in Great Horwood is also enclosed by a moat or other medieval enclosure ditch. Part of Whaddon Chase, which was imparked in the thirteenth century, extends into Great Horwood parish. Great Horwood’s marketplace and fair is also mentioned in a fifteenth century charter and there is a fourteenth century record of a horse-mill whose location is not firmly known. Finds of medieval pottery have been made in the parish, too.

The oldest standing building in the parish is, of course, St James' church, dating to the fourteenth century with fifteenth century aisles and later restoration. Some of the secular houses in the parish are nearly as old, however, with several being fifteenth century cruck-built houses, such as Old Vine Cottage and Ivy Cottage in Singleborough and 17-19 Little Horwood Road in Great Horwood. Some of the other timber-framed buildings date to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, while there are many eighteenth and nineteenth century listed buildings too.

Nineteenth century maps have been examined to flesh out the detail of the parish. Several field barns and enclosures have been identified around the parish, as have gravel and other extractive pits, windmills, a steam mill, a smock mill and a brick- and tile-works attesting to increased industry in the Victorian period. Trial trenching south of Tudor Cottage in Great Horwood uncovered nineteenth to twentieth century maltings and smithy. The rise of non-conformist religion is also seen on Nash Road with the Congregational Chapel there being converted in 1821 from an eighteenth century barn. The latest development in Great Horwood is the airfield that was only used for a few years during World War II.

Want to find out more?  Read the historic town report for Great Horwood (below).