Introduction | Exploring Medieval Village Territories | The Evolution of Post-medieval Village Territories | The Creation of Village Territories | The Development of Medieval Village Territories | Late Medieval Village Territories | Conclusions
However defined, whatever element is examined, the settlements and landscapes of Whittlewood are now very different to those in existence around 1500. Over the last five hundred years, long periods of territorial and administrative stability have been punctuated by brief episodes of reorganisation. Of the twelve parishes of the early 16th century into which our 100 square km of landscape had then been divided, only Akeley, Leckhampstead and Silverstone remain unaltered. Wicken, now one village and one parish was, at the end of the middle ages, split between the manors and parishes of Wick Hamon and Wick Dive. The process of unification began with the joining of the two manors in 1449 and was finally completed when the parishes were amalgamated in 1587 (Page and Jones 2004). Between 1832-44, the detached Oxfordshire township of Boycott in Stowe and the parish of Lillingstone Lovell were formally transferred to Buckinghamshire, causing localised changes in boundaries (VCH Bucks iv., 191-2, 232). The territory of Lillingstone Dayrell was reduced, as its detached portion was removed and joined in the south to Lillingstone Lovell and in the north to Whittlebury, increasing their respective holdings and precipitating a small change in the line of the Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire county boundary. In the south-east of the area, Potterspury acquired a detached part of Cosgrove in 1883, and the western half of the defunct Furtho between 1921 and 1951, and Passenham was split between Deanshanger and the new parish of Old Stratford between 1948 and 1951, the latter also acquiring the southern quarter of Furtho (VCH Northants v., 127, 198).
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URL: http://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue19/5/3.1.cfm
Last updated: Mon Sep 4 2006