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.

The Gunpowder Plot: A Northamptonshire conspiracy

Commissioned by Northampton Town Council, this short, light-hearted film looks at Northamptonshire’s connections to the gunpowder plot. 

A Northamptonshire Conspiracy was made by Northampton Film Festival using local talent. It features many Northampton and Northamptonshire locations, including Delapre Abbey, Rushton Hall and Ashby Manor House. 

The film premiered on a big screen on Northampton Racecourse on Sunday as part of Northampton Town Council’s Bonfire Night celebrations. 

The last aerial ropeway in England

This is the last surviving industrial aerial ropeway in the country.

They used to be common - a cheaper way of transporting heavy loads than building a railway.

You found them in the Northamptonshire iron ore fields. One crossed the Market Harborough to Northampton road just south of Brixworth. Another passed close to Rushton Triangular Lodge.

And as any reader of Malcolm Saville's Seven White Gates will know, you found them in the Shropshire lead mining country too.

So enjoy this one while you can. There is something satisfying about the way the loaded buckets negotiate the pylons.

Conservative-run Northamptonshire splashed out on luxuries as its finances collapsed

Rushton Hall

Sarah Ward reports in the Northamptonshire Telegraph:

Northamptonshire County Council spent huge sums on corporate hospitality, string quartets and lavish events as it was heading towards its financial crisis. 

During 2015 when the state of the finances was becoming increasingly serious, the authority paid for a number of luxuries including £2,700 on a heritage dinner at Rushton Hall, £3,624 on a flypast at the Grafton Underwood memorial event and £4,500 on a marquee for an occasion at Boughton House, Kettering. 

It also spent £80,000 with Northampton Saints rugby club, which included the cost of a stadium hospitality box. 

The payments were made through NCC-owned company NEA Properties, which an internal council investigation has found had ‘minimal’ governance and documentation.

She goes on to explain that the money came from the sale of property to the University of Northampton. The bulk of the proceeds was returned to the council, but £120,000 was retained by NEA Properties.

The report quotes the Liberal Democrat councillor Chris Stanbra:

"There is some serious explaining that needs to be done here.

"I knew the company existed but I made the assumption that it was managing the resources properly and that all funds were coming back to the county council. 

"I certainly didn’t think they were spending money on hospitality boxes and on fly pasts at Grafton Underwood. 

"The money should not have spent on these things and of course I expect that minutes of the company meetings would have been taken and properly documented. 

"It is public money at the end of the day and it is completely wrong."

Northamptonshire wind power

Countryfile in Northamptonshire

This week's Countryfile, shown earlier this evening, looked at three subject that have already been written about here.

The first was Rushton Triangular Lodge, which I visited back in June 2009 on one of my first days out with one of those digital cameras they have nowadays.

The second was the new distillery at Harrington, where they make Warner Edwards gin, though this blog's chief interest in the village has generally been that nuclear missiles were once based there.

Finally, the programme showed the start of the 1951 film There Go the Boats, which has been posted here.

To save clicking all those links, you can see a picture of the Triangular Lodge above and the film below.

RAF Desborough

When writing about my walk from Desborough to Pipewell and Wilbarston, I mentioned that I cut across the corner of the disused World War II airfield RAF Desborough. That airfield is worth a post of its own.

The map suggested there should be a path from the airfield down to the village of Wilbarston. Standing on the runway, it was not obvious where the path was. The best candidate was a hedge, with the blackthorn blossom showing prominently.

When I reached it, there turned out to be two hedges either side of what was obviously an ancient lane - almost a hollow way. It had obviously once been metalled and there were what looked like the remains of wartime buildings or security precautions.

Sure enough, it took me down to Wilbarston, passing beneath the village's bypass with a bridge that was almost a tunnel.

When it reached Wilbartson my lane turned out to have the name Rushton Road. This suggests it is an ancient route - Rushton is miles away, beyond the high ground and down in the Ise valley. In the Middle Ages it was one of the most important towns in Northamptonshire: today it is only a village.

This ancient road and its hedges must have been severed when the airfield was built. A reminded of the forces that were unleashed to defeat Nazi Germany.

But I also wanted to write about RAF Desborough to pass on this anecdote from the BBC site WW2 People's War, which also brings home the realities of the era:

I was at RAF Desborough driving a crash ambulance. I was on duty one night when I heard an explosion which I knew from experience was a plane crashing. I told the medical flight sergeant who contacted the control tower and they knew nothing about it. I went outside and saw a glow in the sky from the crashed plane. The M.O. then told me to go and find the plane. We drove into Desborough and nearby was an American bomb dump. The gates were all open ready for us and right at the far end of the bomb dump we found the crashed plane. It was a Wellington bomber.

Everyone on board was killed. Searching the wreckage I found an officers cap which I knew belonged to the Chief Flying Officer of the camp. Apparently he wasn’t on a mission or anything but had gone up on a “jolly”. His body wasn’t discovered for some time, until after the debris was cleared in fact.

Hi wife stayed with his coffin all night in the church, not knowing that his body wasn’t actually in the coffin. The coffin only contained sandbags to give it weight. Indeed, the sandbags were still there when the coffin was buried at his funeral later. I don’t know if the family know to this day.

Some nights later I came across the medical officer and the flight sergeant digging a hole to bury his remains on the road junction. The site of this unmarked grave still exists today. I assume that his marked grave still contains the sandbags.

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.

Glendon and Rushton station

Last year I visited to Rushton Triangular Lodge. I was back in the village again today.

This is Glendon and Rushton station on the Midland mainline between Market Harborough and Kettering. It closed a few weeks before I was born.

Wikipedia says the station opened in 1857 as Rushton - unsurprisingly, as it is right in the village. It was renamed in 1896 to avoid confusion with the larger Rushden, which is also in in Northamptonshire.

J. L. Carr and St Faith's, Newton in the Willows

A few years ago a friend gave me a copy of The Last Englishman - Byron Rogers' biography of J. L. Carr. A Yorkshireman, Carr was a primary school headmaster from Kettering who had great success late in his life as a novelist and publisher of eccentric small books.

One chapter of the biography deals with Carr's attempt to save the Medieval church of St Faith's at Newton - Newton in the Willows, if you prefer its more romantic name - near Geddington. When he discovered it in the 1960s it was in the process of being closed down by the diocese of Peterborough. The fittings were moved to other churches or stolen by intruders and the interior was further damaged by archaeological excavations.

Thanks to Carr's efforts the building was saved and is now a field centre, run by a charitable trust. I approached it across the fields from Geddington last Saturday and found everything padlocked when I arrived. Even when an operating church is locked you are allowed to sit in the porch to shelter - I have even been taken home and given a cup of tea by a woman doing the flowers.

Newton was also the site of a great house owned by the Treshams - whom we met recently at Rushton - but the only thing left from that estate is the 17th century dovecote near the church.



There is another, darker story from Newton in the Willows: the story of the Newton Rebels:

1607 was just a few years into the reign of James I. Times were hard. Harvests had been poor, the weather bad, and the population was growing. Food was expensive and hard to come by. The enclosure of common land by local landowners, especially the Treshams of Rushton, a notorious Roman Catholic family – hard up since the involvement of Frances in the Powder Treason only two years earlier - and their cousins at Newton, was the last straw.
Trouble had been building up in Northamptonshire since May Eve, probably after a few drinks to celebrate May Day, a traditional festival which also marked the beginning of the season when animals had been permitted to graze on the common land in nearby Rockingham Forest.
Discontent spread across north Northamptonshire, and to Leicestershire and Warwickshire throughout May. The events at Newton were the culmination of the Midlands Revolt when King James feared that after hearing reports of 3000 at Hillmorton in Warwickshire and 5000 at Cotesbach in Leicestershire, the situation was becoming out of control. A gibbet was set up in the city of Leicester as a warning not to get involved. It was torn down by the people.
The protesters called themselves diggers and levellers – terms that would be more familiar when heard again in the Civil War.

Over 1000 peasants gathered from Rockingham Forest - men, women and children - led by Captain Pouch. He was a tinker whose real name was John Reynoldes. He claimed to have authority from the kingdom of Heaven and to have a pouch which contained "that which shall keep you from all harm". Following the events of 8 June, it was found to contain nothing more than a piece of green cheese.

The armed bands formed of local men were reluctant to be involved and the gentry had to rely on their own servants to support them. The rebels refused to obey the orders to disperse, and continued to pull down hedges and fill in the enclosing ditches. The King's proclamation was read twice. Still the rebels refused to give way.

Finally, the gentry and their troops charged, and over 40 peasants were killed. Prisoners were taken, imprisoned in St Faith's Church, and the ringleaders tried, hanged and quartered. Their quarters were hung in towns across Northamptonshire as a clear message.

At St Faith's today there is a memorial to the men who were executed: "May their souls rest in peace."

The alpacas of Rushton

After visiting Rushton Triangular Lodge, I explored the village of Rushton itself. The bridleway heading off towards Kettering was so inviting that I had to take that too.

On the way I met these delightful creatures. I think they are alpacas, shorn for the summer.

Rushton Triangular Lodge

Ever since I moved to Market Harborough in 1973 I have been passing the Triangular Lodge on the train and thinking "I must visit it one day". Today I did.

Rushton Triangular Lodge was built in the 1590s by Sir Thomas Tresham, who had been imprisoned for his Roman Catholic beliefs. It is dominated by the number three, which is symbolic of the Holy Trinity.

It has three storeys and three walls, each thirty-three feet long and with three windows and three gables. The exterior also features biblical quotations together with numbers; some of the numbers remain mysterious in their meaning.

Rushton Triangular Lodge is often called a folly, but in fact it had a practical purpose too. It was a warrener's lodge - the Treshams had extensive rabbit warrens to provide meat and fur.

The lodge stands beside the road from Desborough to Rushton. In railway terms, it is between Market Harborough and Kettering.

It is looked after by English Heritage, and the man in the cabin there will sell you an outstandingly good guide to it written by Mark Girouard. He sells no refreshments beyond bottles of water, but there is a good pub in Rushton village.

You can find more history and photographs on Bashing Secularism, and everything2 discusses the building's symbolism and numerology.