Beautiful English Churches - St Faith's Church, Kilsby, Northamptonshire.
St Faith's Church, Kilsby, Northamptonshire.
Kilsby lies on the modern A5, very close to the line of the old Roman Watling Street, which from about 873AD formed the "Danelaw" boundary line between Saxons (to the south and west) and Danish invaders (to the north and east). The village was probably founded in about 900-920AD - the giveaway is in the name "Kilsby", which probably comes from the Anglo-Saxon word cildes and the Old Norse word býr, literally meaning "child's dwelling" (though "child" in this context probably means "young chieftain").Kilsby's church, now dedicated to St Faith but with an earlier dedication to St Andrew (c15th/c16th) and perhaps an even earlier one to St Denys (c12th), was originally the daughter chapel of the neighbouring parish of Barby, and the two villages still share a priest to this day.The enormous growth and significance of sheep-rearing in this area during the 1400s and 1500s brought with it a number of important knock-on effects in terms of trade and industry within Kilsby, including the growth of the roads around the village, a significant increase in the population, and the building of a number of stone houses in the 1600s and 1700s, indicating that this had been a time of relative wealth and prosperity for some.There is evidence to show that during the 1580s and 1590s the villagers of Kilsby organised themselves into a close-knit Puritan community, their lives strictly regulated under the watchful eyes of six "elders" who assisted the priest in ensuring that the community followed the severe principles of puritanism.
Source. Gren Hatton’s Kilsby; The Story of a Village.
Beautiful English Churches - St Faith's Church, Kilsby, Northamptonshire.
St Faith's Church, Kilsby, Northamptonshire.
Kilsby lies on the modern A5, very close to the line of the old Roman Watling Street, which from about 873AD formed the "Danelaw" boundary line between Saxons (to the south and west) and Danish invaders (to the north and east). The village was probably founded in about 900-920AD - the giveaway is in the name "Kilsby", which probably comes from the Anglo-Saxon word cildes and the Old Norse word býr, literally meaning "child's dwelling" (though "child" in this context probably means "young chieftain").Kilsby's church, now dedicated to St Faith but with an earlier dedication to St Andrew (c15th/c16th) and perhaps an even earlier one to St Denys (c12th), was originally the daughter chapel of the neighbouring parish of Barby, and the two villages still share a priest to this day.The enormous growth and significance of sheep-rearing in this area during the 1400s and 1500s brought with it a number of important knock-on effects in terms of trade and industry within Kilsby, including the growth of the roads around the village, a significant increase in the population, and the building of a number of stone houses in the 1600s and 1700s, indicating that this had been a time of relative wealth and prosperity for some.There is evidence to show that during the 1580s and 1590s the villagers of Kilsby organised themselves into a close-knit Puritan community, their lives strictly regulated under the watchful eyes of six "elders" who assisted the priest in ensuring that the community followed the severe principles of puritanism.
Source. Gren Hatton’s Kilsby; The Story of a Village.