Granborough

The land which has formed the parish of Granborough since the tenth century may possibly once have been part of a Roman estate also comprising North Marston and Pitchcott, an area entirely bounded by streams and the Roman road from Fleet Marston to Thornborough. In 1953 a 2nd century Roman flagon was found during building work in the centre of the village.

Although the name Granborough (Grenebeorge, Grenesberga - old English 'green hill') does not appear in written records until the eleventh century, its boundaries are described in two Anglo-Saxon charters for Winslow dated 792 and 948. From then until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1538, Granborough was part of a manorial estate belonging to the Abbey of St Albans, along with neighbouring Winslow (with Shipton) and Little Horwood.

Granborough’s short western boundary follows the alignment of the Roman road, now known as Carter’s Lane. This route formed part of the old coaching road which fell out of use by traffic after the Wendover to Buckingham Turnpike (A413) was established in 1721. Granborough’s southern boundary with North Marston, followed an ancient route-way, the ‘Steet' or 'Heortmere’, probably linking Hoggeston to Hogshaw. It was no longer in use by the mid-eighteenth century. The point where these two ancient ways meet also marks the confluence of several other footpaths and roads, including a footpath known in the sixteenth century as the Saltway. This location is known as Dead Man’s Corner and may have been the site of a gallows. The adjacent field and smallholding are known today as Stapler’s Piece. The remaining boundaries are formed by three streams: the Wealabroc or Winterburn from the west and the Small Brook from the south, both running into the Swan Bourne or Winslow Brook, before it flows north towards Claydon.

Granborough is listed as a sub-manor in the Domesday Book, and by 1086 had grown in population and value since St Albans Abbey acquired it, with settlement focused on the present village. From this time until the late eighteenth century, the land at Granborough was farmed communally in an open-field system of three large fields: Mill Field (to the north of the settlement), Blackwell Field (to the south west) and Adam’s Leys Field (to the south east). Public footpaths still trace the boundaries between these three fields. Evidence of the furlong divisions and ridge and furrow that comprised these fields, can still be detected in a few areas not deep-ploughed in more recent times. Several furlong names recorded on the Salden Estate Map of 1599, and others found in the medieval court books, survive as modern fieldnames.

The Winslow manorial court administered each of the separate field systems of Granborough, Winslow, Shipton and Little Horwood, on behalf of the Abbot (or his agent), and for later secular lords of the manor. Until the sixteenth century, the court met twice a year at the manor farm, known as Byggyng or Biggin Farm. This site, long deserted, lies within Granborough parish, beside the Winslow Brook to the west of the present bridge. House and barn platforms associated with the farmhouse and the quarters of the abbot’s official, can still be seen as earthworks on the site, along with fishponds and enclosures running down to the brook.

There is evidence, confirmed in the fourteenth century manorial court books, that the upper part of the village now comprising Green End and Church Lane, may have formed part of a re-planned settlement that was never completed or fully occupied. Also, just beyond the existing housing, in the fields to either side of Hogshaw Road, there are earthworks of house platforms, tofts and crofts. Both pieces of evidence indicate settlement shrinkage, probably due to the Black Death and its aftermath.

Mill Hook and Gill’s Hook, on the Winslow Brook near to the boundaries of Granborough and Winslow, with East Claydon and Swanbourne respectively, may have been sites of medieval watermills. As early as 1337 Granborough had a windmill situated at Millknob Hill, on the crest of the ridge beside the road to Winslow. A substantial mill mound is still visible.

The parish church, dedicated to St John the Baptist, is a plain medieval structure. The nave, much altered and with later windows, dates to the early fourteenth century. The chancel was rebuilt in its present form at the very end of that century and the tower was added at the end of the fifteenth century. It contains five tuned bells and a Sanctus bell: the tenor is fifteenth century, the rest have seventeenth century dates. There are several earlier fittings in the church, though the building underwent renovation, by the architects Sir Gilbert Scott and John Oldrich Scott, in 1879-81.

Two distinctive objects were displayed in the church after the renovation work. A pewter Chrismatory box, for carrying holy wine, oil and water, and dating from the fifteenth century, was found hidden within the wall of the nave. It is one of only two pre-Reformation boxes of this type in England, surviving in the place where it was used for anointing the baptised, the confirmed and those close to death. The original is now in the museum at Christ Church, Oxford, and a replica has been placed in the church. The second medieval artefact preserved in the church, is a weathered alabaster panel depicting the crucifixion, dating from around 1400. This was exposed to the elements for some years, as it had been re-used in the gable-end of Mill Hook Farmhouse. It may originally have formed part of an altar reredos, either in the parish church, or from a demolished building at Biggin.

Granborough’s domestic architecture is varied. 4 North Marston Road, is a sixteenth century timber-framed cottage incorporating an earlier cruck-built structure. There are several sixteenth and seventeenth century half-timbered farmhouses and cottages, including Sparrows Thatch, The Leys, Rose Cottage, White Chimneys, The Old Dairy, 23 Green End, 25 Green End and Goblin Cottage. Others of similar age, like Mill Hook Farm, Grange Farm and Green End Farm, were altered and extended in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Rookery Farm has sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth century features, including wall-paintings, one dated 1628 and the other characteristic of the mid-sixteenth century. There are also several substantial post-enclosure farmhouses: Ley House, The Laurels, Wings Farm, and the three-storey Lower End Farm built in 1830.

The most dramatic change in the landscape, land-use, life and economy of Granborough arrived with Parliamentary Enclosure in 1796. Granborough was the last amongst its neighbours to be enclosed and so had to fit in with their decisions on rights of way. The pattern of roads, lanes and paths, and the patchwork of fields with their hedges, visible today, were determined largely by the decisions of the enclosure commissioners and their surveyor.

One result of Enclosure was the disappearance of the common along the north side of the boundary with North Marston and also the village green, a wide triangular-shaped communal space at the heart of the village, shown on maps of 1760, 1796 and about 1812. The northern edge of this area was marked by a hollow way that ran directly in front of the older farmhouses: The Leys, Rookery Farm, Mill Hook Farm and others. On the south side it ran up to the two inns, The Crown and The Sovereign, and the northern part of Kings Hill. Around twenty houses and their gardens in the present-day village now stand on what was once the green.

Granborough possesses two former vicarages. The Old Vicarage, built in 1818 and later extended, stands on the north side of Green End. In 1869 the vicar requested a larger residence be built in a more secluded location. His successors occupied the Gothic-style house, now called Granborough Lodge, to the south of the church, from 1871 until 1963, when the benefice was united with that of North Marston.

The War Memorial stands in the northern corner of the churchyard and commemorates five men from Granborough who died in the First World War. There are two related memorials inside the church.

The twentieth century saw an inevitable reduction in the number of buildings available for community use. In the 1920s The Sovereign Inn, an ancient building formerly the village pound, was demolished; the site now forms part of Sovereign Close. The Red Lion, the Bakehouse, the school (1854-1944), the Wesleyan Methodist chapel (1851-1971), the post office and the village shop, all closed in turn and became private houses. Today, only the parish church, the distinctive Edwardian village hall, and The Crown Inn remain as places where local people gather together. However, part of the glebe land – Vicar’s Leys – at the west end of Church Lane, made available to the village as allotments in the 1870s, is now occupied by the children’s playground; a safe place, with its excellent view looking south to the ancient Heortmere.

Many thanks to Andrew Kemp who updated this page in 2023.