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Brief History of Blisworth A shallow valley sheltered from east winds, a liberal supply of good spring water emerging from a limestone bed and some fine alluvial meadows just to the north were no doubt likely to prompt early farming families to settle here. In the Domesday records the settlement was named Blidesworde (Blide’s Enclosure or “Blithe, ie. happy, Enclosure”). It was noted to possess a small watermill and about 50 inhabitants. A warrior clan named “The Wakes” later established their manor ‘seat’ here from 1265. A notable clan head was Hereford the Wake, a dominant Midlands force. The last of the clan, Roger Wake (died in 1504), set up a tiny grammar school in the Stoke Road, then South Street, that eventually slid under the wing of the Anglican Church for 400 years, until by government edict the then “Council School” in the village was established in 1913 as a County Primary School.
The Tudor Crown appropriated a vast tract of land as a hunting park in Northamptonshire in 1541 that absorbed the village and, as an obligation to a branch of the Royal family, a part of this park was designated the Honour of Grafton and gifted by decree to the FitzRoy family in 1673 and to a series of Dukes of Grafton. From about 1720 to 1830 Blisworth was rather caringly brought through the period of gradual land enclosure by the fifth Duke of Grafton However, preceding the Grafton era, a certain amount of land enclosure was actually initiated in Cromwell's interregnum (c1655) this arising because of an overdue payment to certain members of his militia meant that certain dwellings or packages of land fell into private ownership and, as is recorded in 1718, this had led to a portion of the parish being enclosed by then. There next occurred an industrial development of the parish, encouraged by the Duke of Grafton with an eye on opportunities arising in the industrial revolution some 50 miles north of the village, consequently this area resembled some other locations in Northamptonshire in that it was centred on quarrying for iron ore and limestone. The move was encouraged, indeed facilitated, by two sweeping changes that also had their roots in the industrial revolution and in the name of transportation: the canal in the 1790s and the railway in the 1840s.
A detail of local geography meant that the canal, which was being built to join Birmingham to potential markets to the south, was established by 1795 as far south as the centre of Blisworth where wharves were built to serve the main road that linked Towcester and Northampton. There the canal construction halted for 10 years while a long tunnel was dug through the prominent hill that lay as a obstacle to the south. Blisworth briefly became an inland port for transhipment of goods both onto the main road, duly upgraded to a turnpike (which merely meant that repairs would be funded), and onto a tiny horse-drawn railway built over the hill to connect to the continuing canal to London. Another detail of geography places Blisworth within five miles of Northampton yet separated by both a low valley and Hunsbury Hill. When Stephenson planned in 1838 the London to Midlands railway he could not get across these obstacles and so built a station at Blisworth that would have to serve Northampton as well, at least for the “through expresses”. Because of this geography, the village eventually became a railway ‘crossroads' in that access from Banbury to the southwest and Northampton and Peterborough to the northeast was added to the north-south connections provided by the mainline to Birmingham and London. The rail developments cast a dark shadow over commercial canal use for main years.
In Blisworth and some neighbouring parishes, the availability of these connections reinforced encouragement for the landowners to develop the region industrially. Hence from the 1810s there was limestone quarrying, and from the 1850s iron-ore quarrying, so that there were plenty of labouring jobs in Blisworth in addition to the demands for manpower from both railway and canal. The population rose to around 1000 and the concept of a “working class” took root in society. The Duke of Grafton built many new houses in the village but hardly enough, due to his mounting debts, for by 1900 tiny cottages were crammed with families and lodgers. Most people now regard it a blessing that the mineral resource ran out in the 1914 – 1922 era; being inaccessible to working with only a shovel, ie. without machinery. In any case, the availability of both men and horses to work them also vanished, for reasons of the Great War.
Death duties brought an end to the Grafton Estate and, in 1919, virtually all cottages and farms were sold to the occupying tenants or, at least, to some wealthy villagers that encouraged a continued tenancy. Blisworth acquired gas, electricity services and some council houses in the 1930s but no mains water until 1955 a full 30 years behind Northampton in this respect. Blisworth, at the low ebb in population of only 750 was using those springs that probably helped spawn the original settlement. Throughout the WWII the springs were augmented by district council water tankers and only a tiny number of refugees from London’s bombings could be housed here because of that limitation. This was a poor area, a church and chapel based community of labourers and a few professionals such as shopkeepers, a milling family which fared rather well and a doctor. Unfortunately employment ceased at the mill in 1930 but, by then, a meat processing business had been set up in the Stoke Road. This was The British Bacon Company and comprised an abattoir for the slaughter and butchering of pigs and a factory area for making pork pies and other meat products. The business was required to move to the edge of the parish in the 1970s because of the hygiene demands placed upon abattoirs by the government. Digging for iron-ore re-visited the parish from c1948 - 1967; this time using giant electric powered diggers and a steam rail network that connected with the public railway lines. Other than generating noise at the time and subsequently an adventure playground for our children, this enterprise had little contact with the villagers, employing only few on account of the mechanisation despite a substantial stepping up in the extraction rate. It was an activity that spread to the neighbouring parish of Gayton.
By the 1960s more jobs were available in Northampton to replace the needs of a dwindling canal and the closure in 1960 of Blisworth railway station which was possible because that obstacle which Stephenson had noted was easily overcome with the increases in steam engine abilities and a loop line off the main line was constructed to take in Northampton.
Soon the M1 motorway brought migrants from London in enormous numbers and a flush of housing estates sprung up in the village. That event, in combination with the baby-boom, sent the village population to over 2050, being a doubling in a decade, and encouraged the rejuvenation and broadening of village life with many newly formed societies. Our population now resides at around 1800. As in every parish, farms have coalesced and spawned mini-industrial estates, homes have hosted businesses and some residents typically commute 10 to 40 miles to work, some by the rapid rail connection as far as London. Our purchasing and commuting habits that we share with nearly everyone have generated the need for a village bypass that was completed in 1991 and has led to our residential streets being over-crowded by our own cars and vans.
Now we have all walks of life represented here in a quiet semi-rural community that differs little from many others in the Midlands. However, the old village heritage is still with us as many families realise they had a grandfather or great grandfather who worked in a quarry or as engineer or porter at the railway station. A term for the collective additional population that lack such heritage is affectionately upheld; they are our “Blow-ins". The term was thought to have been coined at Blisworth but ‘no’ - its use has been noted in Liverpool and the West Country! From the start of the 21st century the quiet village has been buffeted by heavy local traffic and continued pressure to enlarge its housing base. There are some signs in response - there is now a more energetically pursued community plan and a stronger parish council. Indeed our community strength has been challenged in 2016 by two massive proposed projects to create two rail connected warehouse ‘parks’ filling the area between the A45 (bypass) and the A508, to west and east respectively, and between the village of Milton Malsor and Blisworth, to north and south respectively. It remains, for now, a matter for government deliberation before this brief history may state the outcome of the battle between villagers and developers.
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