Furtho

Furtho stands in the rolling countryside of West Northamptonshire, a deserted medieval village now absorbed into the parish of Potterspury. It lies east of Potterspury village, west of Cosgrove and about three kilometres northwest of Stony Stratford. The nearest towns are Wolverton five kilometres to the southeast and Towcester eight kilometres to the northwest. The River Tove once formed one boundary of the 280-hectare parish. The village was gradually emptied when the Furtho family enclosed its land in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. In 1572 Thomas Furtho exchanged villagers’ plots for 20 hectares of common land and closed their ancient right of way to Watling Street. By the 1720s only four houses remained, and by the 1830s just two. The manor house has vanished, but its 15th-century dovecote still stands, restored in 1917 and 1990. St Bartholomew’s church, partly built in the 12th and 14th centuries, was mostly rebuilt in 1620. It was last used for worship in 1921 and is now looked after by the Churches Conservation Trust. A modern red-brick farmhouse nearby serves as a guest house, while the dovecote and church remain as quiet reminders of the vanished village.