The Northamptonshire Village Book

Stoke Bruerne

In 1902 a young pupil at the village school wrote a description of her home :

"It is a very pretty village situated in South Northamptonshire with a population of 400. The Grand Junction Canal runs straight through the village, it is specially interesting because of its locks and the tunnel, the boats have to be taken through the tunnel by means of a steam tug which goes from 5 am in the morning till 9 pm at night every two hours. The Towcester and Olney Railway runs through the parish and has a station about half a mile from the village. The line is now only open for luggage as passengers did not pay."

"The chief occupations of the people are agricultural labourers and working in the Brick-field and on the Grand Junction Canal. We have a full post and telegraph office in the village, we have one delivery of letters and two going out posts. Ther is one public house, The Boat Inn. There is one blacksmith's shop and two shoemaker's shops and five grocer's shops. We have two woods in the village, The Plain Wood and Stoke Park woods. The only drawback in Stoke Bruerne is that we are so very short of clear pure water in the summer."

(The above extract from 'The Northamptonshire Village Book', compiled by the Northamptonshire Federation of Women's Institutes, is reproduced by kind permission of the publishers, Countryside Books, Newbury, Berkshire)