More information : (SP87604380 sited to Newport Pagnell from OS 1:10000 1972)
There is no evidence as to the origin of the borough of Newport Pagnell. Burgage tenure existed in 1086, and the name of the vill shows that at that date a market was already in existence. In the time of Falk Pagnel (before 1138) and probably earlier the borough area was marked off from the 'foreign' by boundary crosses. Within the area so designated stood the burgage tenements, of which there were 53 in 1245 and 34 in 1543.
During the 13th century and part of the 14th the profits of the market and fair, the pleas and perquisities of court, and the rent of the burgesses all appear separately among the revenues of the manor, of which the borough was merely the urban part. By 1479-81 a bailiff was in place who farmed the tolls of the market for #3. All the courts of the borough also existed at that date.
This was the height of the burgesses corporate power for in 1632 'copies of record' were produced and the burgesses convinced that the profits of the fairs and markets had always been the property of the lord and had been included in leases of the manor. This decision was presumably the end of any claim on the part of the burgesses to corporate privileges. However some individual rights were retained such as the setting up of stalls, for the officer responsible for good order of the market-place was called the bailiff in 1670. In 1720 Newport Pagnell was described as 'neither a borough nor a corporation though bigger than many towns that are so called' (1)
Newport Pagnell
1086 The Burgesses have 6.5 plough-teams
c1100 Manor acquired by the Pagnel family.
1227 Represented as a borough and vill by its own jury at the eyre
c1245 Fifty-three burgesses (2)
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