Purpose and Past

Abstract

Faxton is unusual among the deserted villages of Midlands England because it still had an active farming community at the end of the Second World War; its cottages, almshouses and a church were all in occupation or at least capable of use. In 1947 Faxton was even proposed as the site for a Northamptonshire new town. That plan was rejected and, 20 years on, in the spring of 1966, the last inhabitant moved out of the village and her cottage quickly became derelict. In fact, Maurice Beresford was not the only historian delving into the Faxton documentation in the early 1950s. Patrick King, curator of the Northamptonshire Record Society and later archivist at Northamptonshire Record Office, was also drawing together what he could find from the many historical documents to which he had access locally.