Hospital of St Leonard

The Hospital of St. Leonard, for the sick, infirm and for lepers is first mentioned in a deed of 1250, though it is likely to have been founded somewhat earlier. In 1250 a house with a croft in St Peters parish is described as lying ‘at the head of the Old Town towards the Hospital of St Leonard’. 146 It seems likely that this croft is in the area of Old Town Paddocks as this was in 1830 the highest, most westerly part of the Old Town. In 1280 the Leper Hospital is described as being ‘extra Brackle’ when Elena le Zouche granted 10 marks rent in Brackley to the hospital to support 2 chaplains.147 The northern most part of the town recorded in 1760 lay beyond the borough boundary stone. Bridges states that it lay outside the town about half a mile from St James'.

http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/northants/vol2/pp153-154