Radical Long Buckby

St Lawrence, where Stanley Unwin is buried, was locked, but I had already found an impressive Congregational church in the village. Pevsner says it dates from 1771, though there was a poster elsewhere mentioning a celebration of its 305th anniversary, so the congregation must be older than this building.

The picture above shows the rear, but the front is both monumental and plain too. With its large manse and later Sunday school, the grouping was reminiscent of Rothwell.

There is a Holyoake Terrace in Long Buckby, which I suspected had been named for George Holyoake - and I was right.

Because LongBuckby.Net confirms the village's radical history:

The tradition of absorbing incomers, the periods of serious poverty and the presence of many people working in industry and not on the land, gave rise to a village very radical in its politics and favouring the non-conformist churches. The Chartist movement was strong here in the 1830s and 1840s. 

A few years later (1858) the first co-operative society in Northamptonshire was set up and was to become a major influence in the village. In the mid 19th century there were three chapels which, between them, attracted more than four times as many in their congregations as attended the Church of England.