More information : Manor house site (around TL 021795) almost due S of the church, on level ground at 130 ft above OD. Little is known of its construction date but it probably replaced the earlier fortified site to the E [TL 07 NW 1], which was already ruinous in 1363. The date of demolition is also unknown although Bridges writing about 1720 said that 'upon the warren, stood the old manor house, the ruins of which were lately taken down. It was called The Lodge.... John, son to Gilbert Pickering removed to the present manor house about the beghinning of Queen Elizabeth's reign'. After its removal the area was made into a park for the later manor house [TL07NW36], and an avenue and a long rectangular pond then occupied part of the site. The site was levelled for playing-fields in 1967 when trial excavations by Oundle School uncovered 'glazed bricks' in large quantities and a length of walling of unspecified material. (1)
Customer comment recieved December 2016: The manor house referred to by Bridges in 1719 (not 1720) was not sited here but out towards the eastern boundary of Titchmarsh Parish (Titchmarsh Warren or Grove). My sources for this include various historic references to Titchmarsh Grove, maps, tax and land ownership records and a reappraisal of the correspondence of Gwen Brown who headed up the Oundle School excavation.'(2)
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