Grafton House

In the village next to the church there is a large house which has a recorded history since the time of Henry VIII. According to the King's Works, in 1528=9 the building program at Grafton was to repair and extend the existing house, so we can fairly assume that the Woodvilles inhabited a mansion on this spot. We do not know what was there before, for reasons which I will explain later, and there is a complete absence of any information, historical or archaeological, to guide us. We can only guess.

Richard Woodville and his wife Jacquetta settled here after their clandestine marriage c. 1436. We might therefore assume that there was already a suitable house on this site, and with the church adjacent had always been the demesne of the tenant. Grafton manor was valued at 26 shillings in 1086 and £24 in 1440 and so could provide a modest living for the sub-tenant. The tenant in chief was the Abbey of Grestain to 1348 and the de la Pole family after that date. The Woodville family was prominent in South Northamptonshire but were not necessarily tenants of Grafton Manor before 1436, or if they were, did not need to live at Grafton House.

Richard Woodville was the eldest son of a junior branch of the Woodville family. His uncle Thomas died without issue in 1435 and the Woodville inheritance passed to his father. The date seems convenient as it would readily offer a suitable house for the newly married couple in the following year. Richard Woodville, being a single man and a soldier, plainly had no need to consider a house before this. The house need not have been grand at this time, although as they expanded their family over the next twenty years there was probably pressure to enlarge and improve the property.

Richard's prospects were very bright in this period. His wife had an independent income and in 1441 he inherited his father's estates. They were able to buy the manor from the earl of Suffolk in 1440 and it is fair to assume that they spent money developing the house over the next quarter century. They may even have re-built it, but that may be a conjecture too far.

The history of the house becomes clearer after 1527 when Henry VIII acquired the manor from the marquess of Dorset. In the following year stone was reclaimed from the old castle at Castlethorpe and timber was cut from Salcey Forest for rebuilding. New chimneys were added to the house in 1536-7 and a wrought iron gate was built at the entrance on the lane. Building rubble, again from Castlethorpe, was used to build a 14 ft. high wall along the lane. Apparently this was to enclose a bowling alley, which, on the northern side, was bounded by a mound of clay brought from nearby Potterspury. Some rather fat skittle in Terrace, Cornwall, which survive from Tudor times, suggest that Henry VIII's bowling alley was more like a skittle alley. The high wall was most likely intended fro privacy and security. The wall today, which extends almost to the Northampton Road, has been cut down to five or six feet.

Henry rather liked Grafton and he created a park for hunting to the west to include most of the Grafton manor and some of Potterspury. He was therefore to be found here with some frequency. In the summer of 1529 he received the papal envoy, cardinal Campeggio, during the negotiations over the divorce from Catherine of Aragon. Grafton was the place where he had his last meeting with Cardinal Wolsley. Two years later, in 1531, he received the Hungarian ambassadors. Interestingly, they were not accommodated at Grafton but at an inn in Stony Stratford. Henry paid the bill of 16s 6d. He held Privy Council meetings there in 1540 and 1541.

During the short reign of his son £170 was spent on the house in 1551-3 and this work continued into the first year of the reign of Queen Mary, when an expenditure of £450 was recorded. These were significant expenditures but there is no evidence that either monarch spent any time there.

Queen Elizabeth visited in 1564, 1568 and 1575, and in preparation for the last visit £1842 was pent on a 'new building' of two floors and four roofs.

King James I stayed at the house on alternate years in 1608, 1610, 1612, 1614 and 1616.

After this the house must have been neglected because in 1619 instructions were given to board up those parts of the new buildings which were exposed to the elements. In 1628 Charle I mortgaged the honour of Grafton to Sir Francis Crane, who, at the same time, obtained a 31 year lease on Grafton House. He apparently planned to establish a tapestry works there and the King gave him £1000 toward the cost of repairing the building.

The tapestry works scheme came to nothing and it seems that the house fell into a more dilapidated state. As to who was to blame both sides had differing views in the dispute. Crane's accusers suggested that he had removed materials to build a new house at Stoke Bruerne. Crane responded that he had but his house at Stoke Bruerne before Charles I came to the throne and brought his master mason as a witness to point out that the stone was set in mortar mad of earth. Crane appears to have established his case.

This last piece of evidence might support the idea of poor construction in the time of Henry VIII. If the lime was mixed with readily available soil rather than troubling to bring in sand, this might explain the constant repairs over the century. This is curious. Sand is a common enough material and could have easily been carted from a few miles away without adding significantly to the expense. This sound suspiciously like a builder implementing a cheap shortcut and a lack of supervision.

At any rate the old mansion only had a few years left. In December 1643 was captured by Parliamentary troops, who, after looting the house of its valuable contents, set fire to the building. In 1650 it was reported that only outbuildings remained - a stable, brewhouse, buttery and kitchen.

A new house was built circa 1661 and it appears from a plan drawn in 1725 that some Tudor elements of the old building were incorporated in the new one. Of the house inhabited at the time of the Woodvilles (as with so many 15th century buildings) there is no trace at all.