Lyveden New Bield: From potters to depopulation

Ten miles or so to the north east of Glendon Hall, near Oundle, stands Lyveden New Bield, an Elizabethan lodge and moated garden, now owned by the National Trust. As at Glendon Hall, the surrounding land was used from the late 15th century onwards for sheep pasture. The former villages were emptied of their occupants and at the heart of the estate a lodge and garden, competing with the finest in the country, was laid out. Unlike Glendon Hall, however, which was added to and altered over the centuries, Lyveden New Bield was virtually abandoned after the death of its owner, Sir Thomas Tresham, in 1605. Visitors to the estate today can see the empty shell of the building and its gardens more or less as they were left four centuries ago.

Up to that point, the history of Lyveden New Bield would have been similar to that of Glendon. The discovery of Roman artefacts and the excavation of a Roman temple show that, as at Glendon, where Time Team found Roman pottery and a cremation burial with fine Roman glassware, there was a Roman presence in the area from around 100 AD. The Saxons, too, settled here, as they did at Glendon.

The Lyveden valley, with its swift-flowing stream and iron-rich clay soil, also provided the essentials for two important local industries. Iron smelting is known to have developed here from at least the 11th century, and from the 12th century onwards the valley was the base for a medieval pottery industry that exported its products throughout Northamptonshire and eastern England. Some of this 'Lyveden ware' was found during Time Team's excavations at Glendon Hall (see picture).

At the height of the valley's prosperity, during the 13th and 14th centuries, the villages of Potters Lyveden (the name tells its own story), Magna Lyveden, Great Lyveden and Little Lyveden grew up along the valley bottom. By 1400, they had a total population of more than 200.

In 1328, a licence was granted to Robert de Wyville, the Bishop of Salisbury, to enclose part of the land for a deer park. The rest was given over to a typical medieval three-field system of crop rotation, with one field being left fallow each year. Documents from 1388 refer to 64 acres sown with wheat, barley and peas, while oxen, pigs and 48 cattle are also listed along with five sheep.

By 1597, the number of sheep totalled 6,000 and all of the Lyveden villages and their occupants had gone. The archaeological evidence shows that they had survived until well into the late 15th century, but 50 years later, under the ownership of the Tresham family, they had almost disappeared. By the mid-1540s, the Treshams turned 120 acres of woodland, 250 acres of pasture and 50 acres of meadow into parkland. The depopulation of the valley was completed during the rest of the century as the Treshams moved into sheep farming on a large scale.

It was the same process that took place at Glendon, where it had occurred a little earlier at the beginning of the 16h century.

For details on visiting this property, see the National Trust website for Lyveden New Bield.

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