Preston Deanery is a hamlet in the

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of Parish (administrative division), administrative parish used for Local government in England, local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below district ...

Hackleton Hackleton is a village located in West Northamptonshire, just north of Buckinghamshire. It is south of Northampton town centre, and by road to the M1 London to Yorkshire motorway junction 15 and north of junction 14. London is south via jun ...

West West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire (; abbreviated Northants.) is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2015, it had a population of 723,000. The county is administered by two unitary authorities: North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. It is ...

, England. It is south of

Northampton Northampton () is a market town and civil parish in the East Midlands of England, on the River Nene, north-west of London and south-east of Birmingham. The county town of Northamptonshire, Northampton is one of the largest towns in England; ...

town centre and by road to the M1 London to

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other English counties, functions have ...

motorway A controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway and expressway. Other similar terms ...

junction 15. It lies just off the B526 road (former A50) from Northampton to

Newport Pagnell Newport Pagnell is a town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the City of Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. The Office for National Statistics records Newport Pagnell as part of the Milton Keynes urban area. It is separated ...

, between Hackleton and Wootton, a former village which has become now a suburb of Northampton. The hamlet's name means 'Priests' farm/settlement'. The hamlet gave its name to the

deanery A deanery (or decanate) is an ecclesiastical entity in the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Anglican Communion, the Evangelical Church in Germany, and the Church of Norway. A deanery is either the jurisdiction or reside ...

here.http://kepn.nottingham.ac.uk/map/place/Northamptonshire/Preston%20Deanery

Governance

The village is represented on Hackleton parish council which also covers the nearby villages of Piddington and

Horton Horton may refer to: Places Antarctica * Horton Glacier, Adelaide Island, Antarctica * Horton Ledge, Queen Elizabeth Land, Antarctica Australia * Horton, Queensland, a town and locality in the Bundaberg Region * Horton River (Australia), i ...

. It is an "ancient parish"; a village or group of villages or hamlets and the adjacent lands which originally they held ecclesiastical functions, but from the 16th century onwards they also acquired civil roles. It was abolished as a separate parish in 1935. The 1801

census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses in ...

showed a population of 70. The current population estimate is 51. At the 2011 Census the population remained less than 100 and was included in the civil parish of

Buildings

Church

The church was dedicated to St Peter circa 1200, then St Peter and St Paul c.1415. It was a

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in community activitie ...

for what was at the time a much larger and later abandoned village. The church is now redundant but cared for by the

Churches Conservation Trust The Churches Conservation Trust is a registered charity whose purpose is to protect historic churches at risk in England. The charity cares for over 350 churches of architectural, cultural and historic significance, which have been transferred in ...

. It has a 12th-century west tower with a central

pilaster In classical architecture, a pilaster is an architectural element used to give the appearance of a supporting column and to articulate an extent of wall, with only an ornamental function. It consists of a flat surface raised from the main wal ...

-buttress on each face, a single

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-typ ...

, and a square-ended

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. ...

. A small part of the church is early

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...

(11th century) and an even earlier part appears to have an early

Viking Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and s ...

influence, which is very unusual for the area. The chancel arch is Romanesque.

Preston Deanery Hall and other houses

Around 1940 Preston Deanery consisted of four semi-detached properties, half a dozen farms and Preston Deanery Hall, once inhabited by monks but since converted to a private residence. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

one of the houses was occupied by a boy and his mother, who worked as a

domestic servant A domestic worker or domestic servant is a person who works within the scope of a residence. The term "domestic service" applies to the equivalent occupational category. In traditional English contexts, such a person was said to be "in service ...

at the Hall. The boy went to school in Hackleton. His experiences are described on the BBC ''People's War'' website.

Preston Green

Further urban expansion of

was being planned in October 2008 with another 13,500 houses and additional infrastructure in the rural areas around Grange Park, Quinton and Preston Deanery however the incoming Conservative-LibDem coalition government of the 2010 General Election has abolished this expansion proposal.

References

External links

{{authority control Villages in Northamptonshire Hackleton