Northampton
This article is about Northampton in England; for other places of the same name see Northampton (disambiguation)Northampton is a large
market town and a
local government district in central
England on the
River Nene, and the
county town of
Northamptonshire, in the English
East Midlands region. The district has a population of
194,800, whilst the Urban Area has a population of
189,474. By this measurement, it is the 21st largest settlement in England. It is situated 67 miles (108 km) north of
London.
Traditionally Northampton has been a major centre of
shoemaking and other
leather related industries. Shoemaking has virtually ceased, though the back streets of the town still show the pattern of small shoe factories surrounded by terraced houses for the outworkers. The main industries now include distribution and finance, and Barclaycard's head office resides there.
Northampton is the most populous
district in England not to be a
unitary authority, a status it failed to obtain in the
1990s local government reform.
It is also one of the most populous urban districts not to be a
London Borough,
metropolitan borough or city; on this basis the council claims that it is the largest town in England. Various other boroughs could claim the title, sometimes taking into account areas outside their civic boundaries, or outlying areas not usually considered part of the town.
Northampton's population has increased greatly since the
1960s, largely due to planned expansion under the
New Towns Commission in the early-1960s. Other factors are the rail link and the busy
M1 motorway that both lead direct to
London. Northampton is within 70 miles of central London, and by car and train it takes approximately 1 hour 30 minutes to journey between the two. This transport link to the South East has proved attractive, with already high house prices in and around London rising rapidly since the
1990s causing many people to move increasingly further away from the area in order to
commute from more reasonably-priced housing. Most of Northampton's housing expansion has taken place to the east of the town, with recent developments on the western outskirts and to the south adjacent to an improved junction on the M1 at
Hunsbury.
Early history
Remains have been found in the Northampton area dating back to the
iron age. It is believed that farming settlement began in the Northampton area in around the
7th century. By the 8th century it had become an administrative centre for the kingdom of
Mercia.
The pre-Norman town was known as Hamtun and was quite small, occupying only some 60 acres.
Medieval Northampton
The town became significant in the
11th century, when the
Normans built town walls and a large castle. The original defence line of the walls is preserved in today's street pattern (Bridge St, The Drapery, Bearward St & Scarletwell Lane).
The town grew rapidly after the Normans arrived, and beyond the early defences. By the time of the
Domesday Book, the town had a population of about 1500 residents, living in 300 houses.
Northampton had one of the largest
Jewish populations in
13th century England, centred around Gold Street. In
1277 300 Jews were executed, allegedly for clipping the King's coin, and the Jews of Northampton were driven out of the town.
The town was originally controlled by officials acting for the King; these officials collected the taxes and upheld the law.
In
1189 King Richard I gave the town its first charter and in
1215 King John authorised the appointment of William Tilly as the town's first Mayor. He also ordered that, "...twelve of the better and more discreet" residents of the town join him as a council to assist him. In 1176 the
Assize of Northampton laid down new powers for dealing with law breakers.
A
university was established in the town in
1261 by scholars fleeing
Cambridge. It briefly flourished, but was dissolved by
Henry III in
1265 owing to the threat it posed to
Oxford.
The first
Battle of Northampton took place at the site of Northampton Castle in 1264 - when the forces of Henry III over ran the supporters of
Simon de Montfort. In
1460, a second
Battle of Northampton took place in the grounds of
Delapre Abbey - and was a decisive battle of the
Wars of the Roses, and King
Henry VI was captured in the town by the
Yorkists.
In May
1328 the
Treaty of Northampton was signed - being a peace treaty between the English and the Scots in which
Edward III recognised the authority of
Robert the Bruce as King of Scotland and betrothed Bruce's still infant son to the king's sister Joanna.
There remains a large series of medieval
tunnels that can be found around the centre of Northampton.
Civil War to 1900
Northampton supported the
parliamentarians during the
English Civil War. For this reason the town walls and castle were later torn down on the orders of King
Charles II as punishment. The
railway station in Northampton stands on the site of the former castle, and for this reason used to be called "Northampton Castle Station".
The town was destroyed by fire in both
1516 and
1675, and was re-built as a spacious and well-planned town. In the
18th century Northampton became a major centre of
footwear and
leather manufacture. The prosperity of the town was greatly aided by demand for footwear caused by the
Napoleonic Wars of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
In his 18th century, "A tour through the whole island of Great Britain",
Daniel Defoe described Northampton as, "...the handsomest town in all this part of England."
Northampton's growth was accelerated in the
19th century, first by the
Grand Union Canal, which reached the town in
1815 and later the coming of the
railways. The first railway to be built into Northampton was a branch from the main
London-Birmingham line at
Blisworth to
Peterborough through Northampton which opened in
1845. This was followed by lines to
Market Harborough (
1859) and
Bedford (
1872). The
Northampton loop off the major
West Coast Main Line was built into Northampton in the late
1870s.
Over the coming centuries the town continued to grow rapidly; after 1850 the town spilled out beyond the old town walls and began the growth we see today. in 1800 the population was round 7,000 and this had grown to 87,000 a century later.
1900 - Today
Growth after 1900 was slower. The town's famous shoe industry ceased to grow and other industries arrived slowly.
In the 19th century Northampton acquired a reputation for political radicalism when the radical non-conformist
Charles Bradlaugh was elected on several occasions as the town's
MP.
Between the wars pressure on housing lead to new council built housing estates being erected. The Borough boundary, first extended in 1900, was expanded again in 1932. The population had increased to around 100,000 by 1961 and 130,000 by 1971. Northampton was designated a New Town in 1968, and the Northampton Development Corporation (NDC) was set up to almost double the size of the town, with a population target of 230,000 by 1981, rising to 260,000 in later years. At this time the town also became linked to the M1 motorway. Actual growth was much slower than planned (in 1981 the population was 156,000), but by the time NDC was wound up after 20 years another 40,000 residents and 20,000 houses had been added. The borough boundaries changed in
1974 with the abolition of Northampton
county borough and its reconstitution as a
non-metropolitan district also covering areas outside the former borough boundaries but inside the designated New Town. Recently another major expansion has been put forward, and is the subject of much public debate.
At the millennium, Northampton applied unsuccessfully to be granted
city status as a part of the "millennium cities" scheme. This distinction for the Midlands area was instead granted to
Wolverhampton.
The
University of Northampton received full university status in 2005, following several years as a University College.
In a report by think tank researchers, Northampton was revealed as being the third worst town or city in the country for gun crime, behind
Leeds and
Bradford.[
1]
Northampton is administered by two local authorities: Northampton Borough Council and
Northamptonshire County Council. The two authorities are responsible for running different local services.
Northampton is currently the largest district in England not to be a self-governing
unitary authority. Northampton's present local government status was set in
1974 by the
Local Government Act 1972 when it became a
non-metropolitan district. Prior to this it had been an independent
county borough.
Northampton is represented in
Parliament by two MPs. These are:
*
Brian Binley,
Conservative, (
Northampton South)
*
Sally Keeble,
Labour (
Northampton North)
Northampton is situated near junctions 15, 15a and 16 of the
M1 motorway. The
A45 and
A43 go through the town and the
A14 is close by to the north. By rail,
Northampton railway station is served by the
Northampton Loop of the
West Coast Main Line, and has regular services to
London and
Birmingham provided by
Silverlink Trains (to London) and
Central Trains (to Birmingham).
Virgin Trains also provide some services to London and the north, with a small number of
Pendolinos running each day.
Sywell Aerodrome is the nearest airfield.
The town is noted for its many parks, which include:
*Abington Park (home to the annual Green Festival which is held on the first Sunday in September. The aims of the Festival is to celebrate all aspects of Green life. Promoting a harmonious view of the world where co-operation is the norm. Encouraging a holistic and balanced lifestyle to ensure the planet has a sustainable future),
*The Racecourse (home to the annual
Balloon Festival). Originally a horse racing course until 1904 when it was abandoned following a series of accidents. During the WWII the park was ploughed over so that local residents could plant and grow vegetables. To the far side of the Racecourse park is the White Elephant public house, originally built to serve the racecourse 'punters' and was aptly named after the closure, leaving this to be a large white building with nothing around it, at all.
*
Delapre Park,
*
Bradlaugh Fields,
*Becket's Park (named after
Thomas Becket, who also lends his name to the nearby Becket's Well) and *
Iron Age hill fort Hunsbury Hill.
*
Billing Aquadrome leisure park is situated on the town's outskirts, which incorporates a caravan site, marina and funfair. As well as the 'Marina' bar, the site offers 'The Quays' riverside restaurant and 'The Billing Mill' which was converted from the original water mill, with many of the original workings still in place and visible through gallery windows.
As well as two indoor
shopping centres (The Grosvenor Center and Peacock Place), the town also claims to have Britain's largest market square, which dates back to
1235. The square and surrounding shopping streets used to host the annual
St Crispin Street Fair, held during the October half-term school holiday from 1993 to 2005. Away from the town centre the main suburban shopping areas are Wellingborough Road and Weston Favell.
The
Derngate and
Royal theatres are situated next door to each other in Guildhall Road, opposite Northampton Museum and Art Gallery. (these are however, currently closed for refurbishment until late 2006)
The Deco is a theatre/conference centre based on the Grade II listed former Cannon Cinema, in Abington Square. There is a smaller museum in a former mansion within Abington Park.
Until the removal of council funding caused its closure and liquidation, the
Roadmender was a leading venue for art and music in the region. Three
cinemas are also located in the town:
Vue (formerly UCI) at Sol Central,
Cineworld (formerly
UGC, and before that Virgin Cinema) at
Sixfields and the Forum Cinema at
Lings Forum.
The town is home to:
*
League One football club (nicknamed
The Cobblers due to the town's previous association with shoemaking), at
Sixfields Stadium.
*
Guinness Premiership rugby union club
Northampton Saints, at Franklin's Gardens. The Saints, as they have been nicknamed, had their greatest ever moment when the team won the Heineken European Cup in 2000 at Twickenham beating Munster 9-8.
*
Northamptonshire County Cricket Club, at the
County Ground.
*The Nene Whitewater Centre provides an artificial
whitewater course for
canoes,
kayaks and
rafts.
*Northampton Swimming Club, which trained the young
Olympic swimmer Caitlin McClatchey.
*Collingtree Golf Club, which hosted the British Masters in 1995.
|
All Saints' Church in central Northampton |
*Northampton's oldest standing building, the Church of
The Holy Sepulchre, is one of the largest and best-preserved round churches in England. It was built in 1100 on the orders of the first Earl of Northampton,
Simon de Senlis, who had just returned from the first Crusade. It is based on a plan of the original Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.
*The current
All Saints' Church (see picture right) was built on the site of a great Norman church, All Hallows, which was almost completely destroyed by the Fire of Northampton in
1675. All that remained was the medieval tower and the fine vaulted crypt, but by
1680 All Saints had been rebuilt, with the help of donations from all over England, including 1,000 tons of timber from
King Charles II, whose statue can be seen above the
portico.
*The
Guildhall in Northampton (see picture at top) was constructed mostly in the
1860s in
Victorian Gothic architecture, and extended in the
1990s. It is built on the site of the old town hall.
*
78 Derngate contains an interior designed by
Charles Rennie Mackintosh for Wenman Joseph Bassett-Lowke and is the only major domestic commission outside
Scotland. It is open to the public by appointment.
*The 127.45 metre tall
Express Lift Tower is a dominant feature in the area.
Terry Wogan conducted a radio phone-in during the 1980s to come up with a name for it: "Northampton Lighthouse" was suggested as Northampton is one of the furthest places from the sea. It is also known as the "Cobblers' Needle". It was built to facilitate the testing of new lifts at the Express Lifts factory. It is visible from most of the town, but is now redundant. The tower has however been listed as being of architectural importance in the town.
*Northampton Castle (now only remaining as a rebuilt postern gate in a wall outside the railway station and the hill on which it stood) was for many years one of the country's most important castles. The country's parliament sat here many times and
Thomas `a Becket was imprisoned here until he escaped.
*The
Carlsberg UK brewery is located in the town.
*
Delapre Abbey - former
Cluniac nunnery, County Records Office and site of the second
Battle of Northampton.
*Queen Eleanor's body rested here on its way to London - and the nearby
Queen Eleanor's cross commemorates this resting. The Cross is also referred to in
Daniel Defoe's a "Tour through the whole island of Great Britain" where he describes the Great Fire of Northampton, "...a townsman being at Queen's Croos upon a hill on the south side of the town, about two miles off, saw the fire at one end of the town then newly begun, and that before he could get to the town it was burning at the remotest end, opposite where he first saw it."
*
Northampton School For Boys - one of the few state-funded single sex school for boys in England.
|
Medieval cellars at the Northampton & County Club |
*The town's Greyfriars Bus Station, built in the
1970s to replace the old Derngate station, was featured on
Channel 4's
Demolition programme and was cited as the worst transport station in the UK, and it was suggested worthy of demolition.
*Northampton & County Club - which was established in 1873 was the old county hospital before becoming a private members' club; the cellars date back to medieval times and there are currently plans to develop these into a wine bar.
Other churches in Northampton
* St Andrew
* St Giles
* St John Baptist
* St Peter
* St Edmunds [closed in 1978 and subsequently demolished]
* St Michael and All Angels with St Edmund [where the St Edmund congregation went after closure]
*
Marburg in Germany
*
Poitiers in France
Modern*Scientist
Francis Crick, born in the town in
1916, along with
James D. Watson discovered the structure of
DNA, and went on to win a
Nobel Prize. In December 2005, a public sculpture called
Discovery by Lucy Glendinning was erected in Abington Street as a memorial to Crick [
2].
*Actress
Joan Hickson, famous for playing
Miss Marple, comes from Kingsthorpe.
*"Birds of a Feather" actress
Lesley Joseph grew up in the town.
*Nearby is
Althorp, the country estate where
Diana, Princess of Wales is buried. In
1997, her funeral procession passed through the town.
*Journalist and broadcaster
Andrew Collins hails from Northampton and wrote about growing up in the town in his memoir
Where Did It All Go Right?.
*
Des O'Connor lived in Northampton, worked at Church's for some years and played for the Cobblers (Northampton Town Football Club).
*Television presenter Michael Underwood lives in the town.
*Composer
Sir Malcolm Arnold was born in the town.
*Actor
Robert Llewellyn (
Kryten from
Red Dwarf) was also born in the town.
*Writer
Alan Moore, creator of
V for Vendetta,
Watchmen, and
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, is a lifelong resident of Northampton. His novel
Voice of the Fire is a fictionalized history of the town.
*
Myrea Pettit, renowned fantasy artist of
fairies,
flowers and
butterflies learned her craft in
Northamptonshire.
*
Jo Whiley, the
BBC Radio 1 DJ was born in the town in
1965.
*The late
Delia Derbyshire, who was behind the original version of the
Doctor Who theme tune, spent her final years in the town.
*Blue Peter's
Peter Purves lived in the nearby village of
Cogenhoe.
*
Lee Wallis, part of the team behind
The One Million Masterpiece was born in Kingsthorpe
*BBC radio presenter
Anna Murby comes from the county.
*
Judy Carne, born Joyce Botterill on April 27, 1939 in the town, is an actress who may be best remembered for her introducing the phrase "Sock it to me!" while a regular on Laugh-In.
*
Edmund Rubbra (1901-1986) - Composer
*
William Alwyn (1905-1985) - Composer
*
Marc Warren, who played Danny Blue in the
BBC's Hustle series, was born in Kingsthorpe.
*Northampton was used as the town location for
Keeping Up Appearances between 1990-1995.
*
Stuart Pearson Wright award winng artist was born in Northampton in
1975.
* Professional wrestler
Norman Smiley was born in the town.
Historical*
Spencer Perceval was a local MP and Prime Minister. He is famous for having been killed in the House of Commons by
John Bellingham in
1812.
*
John Clare, the poet, was sectioned in the local madhouse, where he remained until his death in 1864.
*
Charles Bradlaugh, the famous radical MP, was a member for the town.
*The Victorian cricketer and pioneer missionary
Charles ("C.T.") Studd who played in the first
Ashes test, was born at
Spratton, just outside Northampton.
*
Errol Flynn acted in the Northampton Repertory Theatre between 1933 and 1935.
*
Elizabeth Bowen, 20th C. Anglo-Irish writer, lived here after her marriage.
*
Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672)- a puritan poet later based in Massachusetts.
*
Alban Butler (1710-1773) - the author of
Lives of the saintsMusical *
Bauhaus (band)*
The DepartureFour newspapers are published in the town:
* The Chronicle and Echo.
* The Mercury.
* Northants on Sunday.
* Herald and Post
Radio stations:
*
BBC Radio Northampton, and
*
Northants 96 are based in the town, both broadcast to the wider county.
* Inspiration FM - only broadcasts a few months per year
Regional television news is provided by:
*
BBC Look East and
*
Anglia News.
At one point during the late 1990s-early 2000s, Northampton also had its own local TV station, Northants TV (NTV). It was transmitted on both cable and later terrestrial, mostly showing local adverts, sport, and documentaries on the surrounding countryside and activities.
Settlers from Northampton moved to the United States and set up various new towns there. As a result Northampton is a popular name for cities and towns in the United States:
*
Northampton, Maryland *
Northampton, Massachusetts*
Northampton, New York (two locations)
*
Northampton, North Carolina*
Northampton, Pennsylvania*
Northampton, Virginia*
Northampton Township, Pennsylvania*The Northampton Development Corporation produced a
single that was released nationally by
EMI, entitled
60 Miles by Road or Rail, by
Linda Jardim (who was also a vocalist on
Buggles's
Video Killed the Radio Star) in an attempt to generate publicity for the growing town. Sixty miles is the approximate distance from the town to
London, which many people
commute to. The
B-side was
Energy in Northampton, about
extraterrestrials choosing Northampton as a landing site. Strangely, neither song took the charts by storm, but for those interested and unable to obtain a copy on eBay, the A side is still played daily in the town's museum!
*The bells from the church of St Edmund, Northampton, which was closed in 1978 and subsequently demolished, are now in
Wellington Cathedral,
New Zealand.
*Residents of the town are known as Northamptonians.
*
Northampton's tunnels*
History of Northampton*
BBC Radio Northampton*
Northampton Borough Council*
Northampton University website*
Location Map for Northampton*
Satellite view of Northampton*
Northampton with Vision*
Daniel Defoe - "A tour through the whole island of Great Britain".
* Gerald Smith - an article on Northampton's underground secrets in the Chronicle & Echo - early 2006.
