Oundle’s History

From the late Saxon period until the middle of the sixteenth century, Oundle was one of the properties of Peterborough Abbey. Oundle’s large and beautiful parish church, originally part of a monastery, and much of it dating from the thirteenth century, suggests that this was a period of prosperity.

Oundle’s 1086 ​Doomsday book ​entry shows a small town household comprising 23 villagers, 10 smallholders and 3 slaves, surrounded by woodlands and 50 acres of meadows. It had a mill,worth 1 pound, and had a value to Peterborough Abbey of 11 pounds, having been only worth an estimated 5 shillings in 1066.

A charter issued by Peterborough Abbey in the early thirteenth century sheds some light on the life in medieval Oundle – : a population of around 500, including clothworkers, a skinner, a smith and two masons. {PICTURED: St Wilfred}

Before the Reformation there had already been a modest guild school, in part of the Parish church, but Sir William Laxton, in the codicil to his will of 1556, instructed that the former guild house be acquired and used as a grammar school with accommodation for ‘seven poor honest men’. The guild house stood in the churchyard on the site of​ Oundle School’s​ present Laxton House, and was the first part of the current school.

Double foundations of this kind were not uncommon at the time. Oundle possesses another example in Latham’s Hospital in North Street. In 1611 Nicholas Latham founded an almshouse for women and a school in these premises. Latham’s Hospital still fulfils its original purpose of providing a home for elderly ladies, but his Bluecoat school merged with Oundle Church of England School at the end of the nineteenth century. {PICTURED: Sir William Laxton 1500-1556}

Additional buildings tended to be crowded into the narrow space between the main streets and the back lanes, with expansion on the town edge being impossible with unenclosed open fields.

Eighteenth century Oundle, like many other small market towns, included a wide range of trades and occupations, such as shoemakers, fellmongers, a tanner, a turner, a Hemp Dresser, a Rope Maker, Slaters, Watchmakers, ‘Innholders, a Fishmonger, a Miller, Grocers, a ‘Jockey’ (who was probably a Horse Dealer), some Glovers, and a Gunsmith. John Clifton, master carpenter, perhaps sexton, and diarist, wrote vividly of the pleasures and hardships of the late eighteenth century, including floods, smallpox, fairs and bullrunning, the goings-on of his fellow townsmen, astronomy and gardening. His will shows that he had a considerable library.

Nineteenth century Oundle had a strong Non-conformist tradition, stemming from the Elizabethan puritans. Three Nonconformist Churches and the Jesus Church, built by the Watts-Russell family as an Anglican Church, were added, and from a population of about 3000, roughly one-third supported one of the dissenting chapels. The former Congregational Church, now the Stahl Theatre, was built on the site of the Great Meeting, an earlier Independent place of Worship.

A Baptist chapel was also built in 1852, but this was closed some years ago. A new Methodist church was opened in 1985 in the former Telephone Exchange: the old building has been used for various purposes, recently a shopping arcade, and a restaurant. Oundle was the centre of a Poor Law Union, but its workhouse has been demolished and only the chapel remains, which has been converted into a private house.

Oundle suffered great loss in World War 1, as witnessed by the central listed War memorial and ​Oundle School’s Memorial Chapel commemorating 260 Ex-pupils​ of Oundle School, including Sanderson’s own son Roy, whose death his father had to announce to the School in 1917/18. Sanderson’s ashes are interred in the Chapel.

Scott – Robert and Peter → WWF and slimbridge – painting – Scott Houseq. Oundle grew steadily after the Second World War. In the last decade of the 20th century the population increased more rapidly to a 2005 figure of over 5250, and an estimated 6,500 nowadays.