SOCIAL VALUES AND HOUSING IN
BLISWORTH 1800 - 1930

Based on a piece penned by George Freeston c. 1970

It is not often that Blisworth gets into the headlines but there was one occasion in April 1911. There was a question in a Parliamentary Session when a labour MP, Mr Fred Kellaway, verbally attacked the Duke of Grafton (who was landlord for 90% of Blisworth at the time) for not building enough new houses in the village. The question was vehemently replied to by his kinsman Mr Fitzroy who was our MP (a Conservative one and a relative of the Duke of Grafton, as it happened).  To read the article that is linked above is to understand the severity of a problem that evidently had been developing for many years.

The problem of Blisworth housing commenced with the arrival of the Canal in c. 1800 and the businesses encouraged by that and the fact that the Northampton road had been designated a turnpike. Then the arrival of the LMS railway line nearby in 1838 with its station further placed demands on housing. Then the Westley business of baking and milling increased demand too. The problem was answered in the short-term each time. The railway company built a terrace of twelve houses by the embankment which were to accommodate over 70 people at times, including the lodgers. The Westley family built the row of cottages on the hill - Pynus Cottages - for 6 families and the "Westley Buildings" in the Stoke Road for another 27 families. Actually, these latter were not necessarily occupied by mill workers and it seems they were Blisworth's first speculative building project. The Duke built a few good quality cottages in the villages in Victorian times - fifteen in all. These are in elegant groups; two twins in the Stoke Road, a triple in the lower High Street (The Gables), a quad off the Courteenhall Road (Mt Pleasant) and other twins on the main roads out of the village - Knock Lane and Courteenhall Road. These were built in the 1870 or '80s whilst five farm houses were built outside the village in 1820 - 1850 for farmers 'best suited' to farming the new inclosed fields.

A wholly justifiable complaint about Grafton was that there were surely insufficient modest houses for labourers especially when ironstone mining, encouraged by the Duke, was building up from 1860 onwards and many workers who had to walk daily from the neighbouring villages would have preferred to move - instead they lodged. The Duke's tenants were expected to carry out internal repairs while the Duke attended to the thatch - walls were rarely pointed.  However the Duke was not making a sufficient income to run his Estate properly - some businesses were managed abysmally.  Taking in lodgers was the general form and there are numerous stories of a one up and one down cottage accommodating seven people. One individual changed his lodging six times before he was lucky enough to rent one for his family.

Around 1910, there was a radical element developing in the village, being a labourer/working community, whilst the Parish Council remained firmly Conservative. Then came WW I with its rapid readjustments in social values. Quite possibly Blisworth might have been highly charged after that war but the old Duke died and the Estate was forced a sale in 1919 because of death duties. Typical cottage prices were £50, said to be equivalent to £100000 today, and many were sold in groups to the prosperous families of the village with the Duke's tenants continuing with the new owners. The group of four cottages off the Courteenhall Road were probably bought by the Baptist family Westleys - the name, Mt Pleasant, in recall of a Baptist Chapel in Northampton. It is said that the new landlords provided the let for the duration of their lifetime and not necessarily for their offspring, consequently some villagers were evicted to the Towcester 'Work House' - being actually some council run community housing. The poor and unfair conditions were gradually swept away, in actions that began in the 1930s, as some of the worst houses in the village, including the Westley Buildings, were demolished and replaced with many dozen council houses. These were initially set up with outside privies and outside wash-houses.  They had bathroom and a bath but there was no connected hot or cold water. A piped water supply was not laid on to the village until 1954. For many years, a majority of Blisworth families were simply poor. [Ed. The subsequent development of the village reflected that point; though many would argue interminably about that.]  The local school served the families well but all the merchant and farming families aimed to send their children, or perhaps just their first born, to the fee-paying Courteenhall School.