Pilton may always have been a small settlement. It had 31 tax payers noted in 1301 and the population was 90 in 1801, reaching a peak of 149 in 1871 before dropping to 96 in 1901. This map shows the village as it was in 1838. At the end of Pilton Main Street, turn right and go over the cattle grid and into the grass field with Pilton Church and Manor House ahead of you.

A mainly 13th-century church with south doorway of c.1170-80 with waterleaf capitals, dog-tooth and chevron decoration. The clerestory and parapet were added in the later part of the 14th century and Tresham arms were added to the south porch in the 15th century.

There is a three-light 15th-century window in north aisle and a late 16th or early 17th-century window in the vestry. The chancel is of 1862-4 in a 13th-century style to match the original 13th-century chancel arch decorated with stiff-leaf.

The chancel east window has stained glass of c.1864 full of birds and animals, and the choir stalls have poppy heads representing birds and animals, reflecting Lord Lilford’s ornithological interest. The church was extensively restored in 1874-5 and the tower and spire restored in 1896.

The manor house of the Tresham family stands immediately south-east of the church isolated from the modern village. The house was built in the 1560s and has additions and alterations of c.1620 and c.1847. The Treshams inherited the manor from the Mulsho family in the 15th century, and held the manor until Edward Tresham died without a male heir in 1692.

In 1714 his mother and others sold the manor to Sir Thomas Powys. The house was used as the rectory after 1715. Across the field, to the right of the Manor House and nestling in the valley of the River Nene, can be seen Lilford Hall.

The hall was built around 1635 for William Elmes, and in the Jacobean style of the time. Alterations were then made in the 1740s by the prominent architect Henry Flitcroft, who designed a pair of balancing stable wings and the successive addition of small scale extensions in the form of additional storeys to the east end of the two wings. Flitcroft also inserted a comprehensive set of new interiors that transformed the principal rooms into a sequence of Palladian spaces.

In 1721, a drawing by Peter Tillemans shows the hall within Lilford village, which consisted of 12 houses, a church, a vicarage and a mill

all lying on the banks of the river Nene close to the mansion.

Yet less than 80 years later, the village and the church had disappeared, the open fields had been enclosed and the Hall stood isolated within a wooded park. This photo shows the same view today.

The two principal figures in these changes were the lords of Lilford, the third Thomas Powys (d. 1767) who purchased the manor of Lilford in 1711, and his son, another Thomas Powys (later Lord Lilford, d. 1800).

This field contains a grassed-over archaeological pattern of ridges and furrows created by a system of ploughing used in Britain during the Middle Ages onward on unenclosed common arable fields.

The survival of the ridge and furrow at Achurch is typical of how it often survives on higher ground where the arable land was subsequently turned over to sheep walk in the 15th century and has never been ploughed out since by modern ploughing methods. Here, the ploughlines are clearly visible, especially in low, winter sunlight.

The parish of Thorpe Achurch contains the hamlets of Thorpe Achurch and Thorpe Waterville, which together had a population of 208 in 1801 and 176 in 1901. Most of the population today lives at Thorpe Waterville, with only the church, rectory, farm and 16 estate cottages remaining at Achurch.

The manors of Thorpe Achurch and Thorpe Waterville, along with the advowson of Achurch, were purchased by the fourth Thomas Powys (later Lord Lilford) in 1773, part way through the enclosure of Achurch after an act of 1772. Powys was awarded 77% of the land enclosed.

Most of the existing fabric in the church dates to c.1280-90, when the church was rebuilt on a cruciform plan with a west tower and broach spire. The church was extensively restored in 1862, when the aisle and porch were added and the interior re-seated. The parishes of Lilford with Wigsthorpe and Thorpe Achurch were united in 1778 and the monuments of the Powys family of Lilford transferred to Achurch. The church now contains monuments to Sir Thomas Powys (d. 1719) designed by Robert Hartshorne, Charles Powys (d. 1804), Henry Powys (d. 1812), Henrietta Maria Powys (d. 1820), Thomas Powys, second Lord Lilford (d. 1825) and Thomas Atherton Powys (d. 1882).