Brackley and Towcester are both historic market towns of great charm and character. Brackley is the larger, with a population of around 14,000, whilst Towcester has a population of about 9,500.
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A castle was built at the south end of the town in the early 12th century. The rebel Barons drew up the first draft of the Magna Carta at Brackley in 1215. King John did not approve their suggestions and it took almost another year of hard fighting before he was forced to sign.
Robert Le Bossu endowed a free hospital, chapel and graveyard for 12 poor men in 1150, but the need declined and the buildings were sold to Magdalen College Oxford in 1484. By 1548 a school was reported to have been started on the site. The much changed buildings are now the Magdalen College Comprehensive School which still serves the town and surrounding villages.
From the mid 16th century Brackley sent two members to Parliament. Among them was John Donne, the famous poet, in 1601.
The wide, tree-lined market place, with its Georgian and Victorian houses and shops, is an impressive setting for the Town Hall, built in 1706. Brackley was on a coaching route to London, and was said to have twenty eight inns in the 18th century; even today it has eight.
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The Roman town of Lactodorum developed round the fort built on Watling Street, the ancient road to Chester and was later walled.
Bury Mount, the castle motte in Moat Lane, was probably built by the Normans in the 11th century.
There were some 20 coaching inns in the early 19th century. Charles Dickens stayed at the 16th-century Saracens Head and mentioned it in 'Pickwick Papers'.
Samuel Stone and Thomas Lord, the founders of Hartford, Connecticut U.S.A., lived in Towcester in the 1630s and may have known the traditional Towcester cheesecakes, still to be enjoyed in the town today.
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