Finedon was once one of Northamptonshire's four largest towns

At the time of the Domesday Book the four largest settlement in Northamptonshire were Northampton, Brackley, Rushton and Finedon. The first two are still towns (one a great deal larger than the other) and Rushton is now a small village near Desborough

Finedon, where I went today, is described as a town, though its population at the 2021 census was only 4552 and there are few shops left in its historic heart.

The pub proved to be closed until six – as it was a Friday, that suggests to me that it's more of a restaurant these days – and the cafe that was my fallback had the builders in. 

I was saved by a small Co-op branch, were I got a sandwich. Looking round for the refrigerated unit with the cans of pop, I found it had a whole cold room devoted to them. How neat is that? The owner offered to let me stay in there for a while to cool off, but it wasn't that hot outside.

Anyway, Finedon's many ironstone buildings – there were many quarries serving the steel industry here at one time – remain and here are some of them.

Later. In fact, as someone pointed out on Bluesky, the pub I mentioned (The Bell Inn) closed in January. I'd assumed there would be some more pubs on the very busy A6 – as seems common in Northamptonshire, the original centre of Finedon lies off the later main road – but there are none.

Finedon may soon resemble the Leicestershire village of Hallaton, which once tried to rival Market Harborough as a market town. It has what still feels like a high street, but there are no shops on it.

Oh, and the Finedon building in the photograph immediately below this text used to be a hotel.