Moreton Pinkney is a village and civil parish in South Northamptonshire

South Northamptonshire

South Northamptonshire is a local government district in Northamptonshire, England. Its council is based in Towcester.The district is rural and sparsely populated with just over 79,293 people in 2000 and 91,000 in 2008, a 14.8% increase. The largest town in the district is Brackley, which has a...

, about 7.5 miles (12 km) north of Brackley

Brackley

Brackley is a town in south Northamptonshire, England. It is about from Oxford and miles form Northampton. Historically a market town based on the wool and lace trade, it was built on the intersecting trade routes between London, Birmingham and the English Midlands and between Cambridge and Oxford...

.

Parish church

The earliest evidence of Christianity in the parish is a fragment of an Anglo-Saxon

Anglo-Saxon architecture

Anglo-Saxon architecture was a period in the history of architecture in England, and parts of Wales, from the mid-5th century until the Norman Conquest of 1066. Anglo-Saxon secular buildings in Britain were generally simple, constructed mainly using timber with thatch for roofing...

 stone cross in the churchyard of the Church of England parish church

Church of England parish church

A parish church in the Church of England is the church which acts as the religious centre for the people within the smallest and most basic Church of England administrative region, known as a parish.-Parishes in England:...

 of St Mary the Virgin

Mary (mother of Jesus)

Mary , commonly referred to as "Saint Mary", "Mother Mary", the "Virgin Mary", the "Blessed Virgin Mary", or "Mary, Mother of God", was a Jewish woman of Nazareth in Galilee...

. The church itself was built by about 1200, which is the date of its Norman

Norman architecture

About|Romanesque architecture, primarily English|other buildings in Normandy|Architecture of Normandy.File:Durham Cathedral. Nave by James Valentine c.1890.jpg|thumb|200px|The nave of Durham Cathedral demonstrates the characteristic round arched style, though use of shallow pointed arches above the...

 north door and three-bay

Bay (architecture)

A bay is a unit of form in architecture. This unit is defined as the zone between the outer edges of an engaged column, pilaster, or post; or within a window frame, doorframe, or vertical 'bas relief' wall form.-Defining elements:...

 northern arcade

Arcade (architecture)

An arcade is a succession of arches, each counterthrusting the next, supported by columns or piers or a covered walk enclosed by a line of such arches on one or both sides. In warmer or wet climates, exterior arcades provide shelter for pedestrians....

. The piscina

Piscina

A piscina is a shallow basin placed near the altar of a church, used for washing the communion vessels. The sacrarium is the drain itself. Anglicans usually refer to the basin, calling it a piscina. Roman Catholics usually refer to the drain, and by extension, the basin, as the sacrarium...

 and west tower date from about 1300.

The Augustinian

Augustinians

The term Augustinians, named after Saint Augustine of Hippo , applies to two separate and unrelated types of Catholic religious orders:...

 Canons Ashby Priory

Canons Ashby Priory

Canons Ashby Priory was an Augustinian monastic establishment in Northamptonshire, England.The Priory was founded by Stephen La Leye on a site to the south of the present church between 1147 and 1151, during the reign of Henry II....

 had appropriated "the spirituality" of St. Mary's by 1254. John Dalderby

John Dalderby

John Dalderby was a medieval Bishop of Lincoln.-Life:Dalderby was rector of Dalderby in Lincolnshire before holding the prebendary of North Kelsey in the diocese of Lincoln...

, Bishop of Lincoln

Bishop of Lincoln

The Bishop of Lincoln is the Ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Lincoln in the Province of Canterbury.The present diocese covers the county of Lincolnshire and the unitary authority areas of North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire. The Bishop's seat is located in the Cathedral...

, sanctioned this retrospectively in 1309.

The chancel

Chancel

In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar in the sanctuary at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building...

 was rebuilt in 1846 in a 13th century style.

St. Mary's has a ring

Change ringing

Change ringing is the art of ringing a set of tuned bells in a series of mathematical patterns called "changes". It differs from many other forms of campanology in that no attempt is made to produce a conventional melody....

 of six bells. Hugh II Watts, who had foundries in Bedford

Bedford

Bedford is the county town of Bedfordshire, in the East of England. It is a large town and the administrative centre for the wider Borough of Bedford. According to the former Bedfordshire County Council's estimates, the town had a population of 79,190 in mid 2005, with 19,720 in the adjacent town...

 and Leicester

Leicester

Leicester is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England, and the county town of Leicestershire. The city lies on the River Soar and at the edge of the National Forest...

, cast the tenor bell in 1629. The Whitechapel Bell Foundry

Whitechapel Bell Foundry

The Whitechapel Bell Foundry is a bell foundry in Whitechapel in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, in the East End of London. The foundry is listed by the Guinness Book of Records as the oldest manufacturing company in Great Britain...

 cast the other five bells in 1996.

St. Mary's parish is a member of the Benefice of Culworth

Culworth

Culworth is a village and civil parish about north of Brackley in South Northamptonshire, England. Culworth is also about northeast of the north Oxfordshire town of Banbury....

 with Sulgrave

Sulgrave

Sulgrave is a village and civil parish in South Northamptonshire, England, about north of Brackley.-Parish church:The Church of England parish Church of St James the Less is part of the benefice of Culworth with Sulgrave and Thorpe Mandeville and Chipping Warden with Edgcote and Moreton Pinkney.By...

 and Thorpe Mandeville

Thorpe Mandeville

Thorpe Mandeville is a village and civil parish in South Northamptonshire, England about northeast of Banbury in neighbouring Oxfordshire. The hamlet of Lower Thorpe lies just north of the village....

 and Chipping Warden

Chipping Warden

Chipping Warden is a village in Northamptonshire, England about northeast of the Oxfordshire town of Banbury. The parish is bounded to the east and south by the River Cherwell, to the west by the boundary with Oxfordshire and to the north by field boundaries....

 with Edgcote

Edgcote

Edgcote is a village and civil parish on the River Cherwell in south-west Northamptonshire. The parish is bounded by the river to the north and by one of its tributaries to the east...

 and Moreton Pinkney.

Social and economic history

Moreton Pinkney village is a mixture of traditional houses in grey stone and brown ironstone.

Moreton Pinkney once had three public house

Public house

A public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment fundamental to the culture of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are approximately 53,500 public houses in the United Kingdom. This number has been declining every year, so that nearly half of the smaller...

s: The Crown on Brook Street and the Red Lion and Dun Cow on Upper Green. The Red Lion was more recently known as England's Rose and closed in about 2004.

The parish school was built in 1822 and enlarged in 1876. Moreton Pinkney Manor was built in 1859 and altered in 1870. The entrance arch designed by the architect E.F. Law of Northampton, built in 1859 and bears the arms of Lord Sempill

Lord Sempill

Lord Sempill is a title in the Peerage of Scotland. It was created in circa 1489 for Sir John Sempill, founder of the collegiate Church of Lochwinnoch. Sempill was killed at the Battle of Flodden in 1513. His grandson, the third Lord, was known as "The Great Lord Sempill"...

.

Railways

The parish had two railway stations. The East and West Junction Railway (later the Stratford-upon-Avon and Midland Junction Railway

Stratford-upon-Avon and Midland Junction Railway

The Stratford Upon Avon & Midland Junction Railway was a small independent railway company which ran a line across the empty, untouched centre of England. It visited the counties of Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, Oxfordshire and a little of Buckinghamshire, only existing as the SMJR from 1909 to...

) was built through the parish with Morton Pinkney railway station

Morton Pinkney railway station

Morton Pinkney was a railway station on the Stratford-upon-Avon and Midland Junction Railway which served the Northamptonshire village of Moreton Pinkney between 1873 and 1952...

 being opened in 1873 1/4 mi north of the village on the parish boundary with Canons Ashby

Canons Ashby

Canons Ashby is a small village and civil parish in the Daventry district of the county of Northamptonshire, England.Its most notable building is Canons Ashby House, a National Trust property. The parish church is a surviving fragment of Canons Ashby Priory.It is situated one mile from Moreton...

. Later the Great Central Main Line

Great Central Main Line

The Great Central Main Line , also known as the London Extension of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway , is a former railway line which opened in 1899 linking Sheffield with Marylebone Station in London via Nottingham and Leicester.The GCML was the last main line railway built in...

 was built through the parish with Culworth railway station

Culworth railway station

Culworth was a railway station near the village of Moreton Pinkney in Northamptonshire. The station was on the former Great Central main line, the last main line to be constructed from the north of England to London which opened in March 1899.- History :...

 being opened in the parish in 1899 about 3/4 mi southwest of the village on the road to Culworth

Culworth

Culworth is a village and civil parish about north of Brackley in South Northamptonshire, England. Culworth is also about northeast of the north Oxfordshire town of Banbury....

. In 1900 the Great Central Railway

Great Central Railway

The Great Central Railway was a railway company in England which came into being when the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway changed its name in 1897 in anticipation of the opening in 1899 of its London Extension . On 1 January 1923, it was grouped into the London and North Eastern...

 added a branch line from Culworth Junction in the parish to .

British Rail

British Rail

British Railways , which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was the operator of most of the rail transport in Great Britain between 1948 and 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the "Big Four" British railway companies and lasted until the gradual privatisation of British Rail, in stages...

ways closed Morton Pinkney station in 1952 and Culworth station in 1958. BR subsequently had all three railways dismantled.