Rothwell Market House

Eighteen months ago I visited Sir Thomas Tresham's Triangular Lodge at Rushton in Northamptonshire.

Today I was a couple of miles away at Rothwell, where another of his symbolic buildings can be found beside the old market square.

The best account I can find of its history is in Glenn Foard & Jenny Ballinger's survey of Rothwell from 2000:

An agreement was drawn up for certain buildings at Rothwell Cross 'to be executed to the plot’ drawn by the mason William Grumbold of Weldon. The leasing of extensive properties in Rothwell by the Tresham family, who had their mansion at the nearby Rushton, is a good example of a wealthy landowner taking control of and promoting his local town, as had been the origin of many of the county’s market towns and villages in the medieval period and would be repeated by the Hatton family at Weldon in the 17th century.

The building was started shortly after 1587 but, as with Tresham’s Lyveden New Beild, the market house was never completed and it still lay as a ruined state in 1719 when drawn by Tillemans. In the late 19th century it is recorded that the main use of the ruined building had for a long time been primarily as a lock up, while the stocks and whipping post had stood immediately adjacent.

A subscription amongst the gentlemen of the county raised money to repair the dilapidated building in 1827, the remaining money being used to present an engraving of the building for inclusion in Baker’s ‘History and Antiquities of Northamptonshire’. It was not however until 1895 that the market house was finally roofed over, by J. A. Gotch.

And well done to William Grumbold of Weldon, who wins Name of the Day posthumously.