Roman
Watling Street marks the edge
The old Roman road forms most of the parish's western boundary. Roman coins have turned up in the village, including one of the emperor Gratian.
The story
A short version, mostly thanks to the people who did the real work: the Yardley Gobion History site and the History Group.
c.1160
The Gobions arrive
"Yardley" meant a woodland clearing where yards, or spars, were collected. It began as an outlying hamlet of Potterspury. Around 1160 Earl Ferrers granted land here to Hugh Gobion of Northampton, and the family stayed for over 200 years. Their name stayed for good, which is handy, as England has other Yardleys.
Forest
The horseshoe
Yardley was one of eighteen villages inside Whittlewood, the royal forest created by Henry I. Hunting needed the King's permission, and the penalty for breaking forest law could be death. In return for the damage done by the King's deer, villagers could graze cattle and horses in the woods from 5 April to 12 November. Every animal carried its village's brand. Yardley's was a horseshoe.
1347
A castle at Moor End
Thomas de Ferrers got a licence to fortify his house at Moor End. In 1363 it passed to Edward III, who visited and added a royal chamber and chapel and rebuilt the gatehouse. One local history says it was probably pulled down around 1541, with the materials taken to Henry VIII's palace at Grafton, and by 1580 it was "utterly decayed". In the 1830s a tenant dug up over 2,000 yards of its stone. Today it's a wooded island in a moat.
1300s
Kilns under Moorend Road
Yardley was part of the Potterspury pottery industry. Two medieval kilns were excavated on the north side of the village in 1973, and two more turned up in the late 1970s during a house extension on Moor End Road, along with burnt stones, ash, sherds and a lot of roof tile. A 1968 find south-west of the village showed that potters were still at it in the 1700s.
1750s
Five pubs, or thereabouts
The Black Star, the Two Wrestlers and the Coffee Pot all appear in licences of 1753 on one account, while another dates the Coffee Pot's licence to 1814. The Pack Horse was licensed by 1749, in a building that had been St Leonard's chantry chapel until the Reformation. The Red House was a beer house until 1920, when it became a butcher's. Of them all, the Coffee Pot is the one still pouring.
1775
The fields are enclosed
The Duke of Grafton's Enclosure Act shared the open fields among eighteen people, with the Duke taking the largest share. Eastfield Crescent and Brownsfield Road still carry the memory. Whittlewood itself was disafforested in 1854.
1801
The canal comes to town
The Grafton Estate built Yardley Wharf as a public wharf on the nearest stretch of what is now the Grand Union. John Roper, the Duke's steward, leased its warehouse, coalyard and brick kiln for around thirty years, an arrangement that ended with his dismissal.
1864
St Leonard's
Yardley began as a hamlet of Potterspury, and the first proposals for a church of its own came in 1852. St Leonard's was consecrated on 22 December 1864. It was first meant to be St Gregory's, but the dedication was changed to match the old chapel. Lace-making, meanwhile, was keeping many village women in work into the early 1900s.
1934
Water, at last
Until the 1930s the village relied on wells, springs and water butts, with most people sharing the deep well on the Green. In April 1934 Towcester Rural District Council commissioned a pumping station with a windmill, five standpipes and a concrete tower holding 33,000 gallons, all for £1,388 18s 8d. Tom Smith, the village farrier and blacksmith, was put in charge. The tower is the only part left.
1944
The bomber in the orchard
On the night of 20 March a Wellington bomber on a training flight, LN181 with its Canadian crew, came down in an orchard near the Coffee Pot. All on board were killed. Their names are on a plaque that was restored, with their spellings corrected, in time for Remembrance Day 2018.
1952
Champions
Local lads cleared an old tennis court in the recreation field behind the pub, built bikes from scrap off the council tip, and called themselves the Yardley Gobion Aces. They joined the Northamptonshire cycle speedway league in 1952. At the annual dinner dance that December, they were named champions.
1999
The Pocket Park
The old orchard behind St Leonard's, given to the church in 1924 by the botanist George Claridge Druce, who went to school in the village, opened as a pocket park on 7 November. About 200 people came. It's still there, so you could go too.
Family history, wills, old photographs and much more are on the Yardley Gobion History site. Dorothy Warren, to whom that site is dedicated, wrote down many small details of village life. The History Group meets monthly, and its Facebook group is full of old pictures.