INDUSTRIES 



Brewery Company, Dorman, Pope & Co., and 

 T. Manning & Co., while Oundle possesses the im- 

 portant breweryand mineral-waterfactory of Smith 

 & Co., and the Anchor Brewery of C. F. McKee. 

 The King's Royal Crown Brewery Company and 

 William Blencowe & Co. are two well-known 

 Peterborough firms, and others of good local 

 repute might be mentioned at Daventry, Ketter- 

 ing, Brackley, and Wellingborough. Besides 

 the brush-making ' business the only other county 

 industry which we can mention here is the 

 manufacture of agricultural implements. This, 

 as might be expected in a shire where the farm- 

 ing interest is strong, employs a large number 

 of hands, probably well over 3,000 in number, 

 comparing poorly with the forty or fifty thousand 

 workers in the boot and shoe trade, and the leather 

 and allied industries, but otherwise exceeding 

 any other single trade. Such firms as Barford 

 and Perkins, of Peterborough ; William Ball & 



Son, of Roth well and Kettering ; G. Lewis 

 & Son, of Kettering ; Wm. Gascoigne & Son, 

 of Wellingborough, with many others may be 

 mentioned as keeping up the good repute of the 

 county for agricultural implements and machinery 

 of the best type. 



In conclusion, we may remember that Fuller ' 

 declared in the seventeenth century that in 

 respect to manufactures ' this county can boast of 

 none worth naming.' The slight textile trade 

 which he knew is practically gone, but there has 

 been an enormous expansion in boot manu- 

 facture, and although even at the present time 

 the shire is predominantly agricultural, yet 

 industry of the highly organized factory type has 

 a definite place in its economy. In Kettering 

 also, with its great co-operative store and its 

 thriving co-partnership business, the county may 

 claim what has been lately styled ' ' the worthy 

 Mecca of the co-operative world.' 



QUARRIES (HISTORICAL) 



The quarries of Northamptonshire may be 

 divided into two classes, those mainly in the 

 north of the county close to convenient water- 

 ways, which often sent their stone far afield, 

 and the remainder less happily situated in the 

 south and centre, enjoying a more local and re- 

 stricted repute. 



Of the northern quarries Barnack yielded to 

 none in antiquity of origin. The Roman 

 builders who used the Alwalton marble for the 

 inner lining of the dwellings at Castor also 

 worked the stone at Barnack, and even carried 

 it beyond the confines of the present shire. 

 The statue ^ from the Bedford purlieus of Rock- 

 ingham, now at Woburn, the torso' found at 

 Barnack vicarage, and the inscribed stone^ brought 

 to light in 1884 during the restoration of Peter- 

 borough Cathedral, may be advanced in illus- 

 tration ; while trained observers have recognized 

 in the remains of distant Verulamium and the 

 plinth of the Roman wall of London oolitic 

 stone which with a high degree of likelihood 

 may be assigned to the same quarries. Apart 

 from the excellence of its output Barnack from 

 its position between the Welland and the Nene 

 possessed singular advantages in the nearness of 

 water-carriage,^ while for land transport the 

 Ermine Street was close at hand. 



' There are at least four firms at Northampton, 

 two at Kettering, and one at Wellingborough. 



' v. C. H. Norihants, i, 190. 



' Ass. Arch. Sot. Rep. ix, 158. 



' F. C. H. Nortkants, i, 176, 177. 



' There seems to have been a tradition of the ex- 

 istence of a haven at the foot of PiUsgate Hill. 

 Morton, A'(:/. Hist, of 'Northants, p. iio. Whether 

 the ' portecros ' in a Pillsgate rental (Faustina, B iii, 

 f. 114) refers to this it may be impossible to decide. 



In the Saxon period, when the religious houses 

 of the fens began to build churches of stone, it 

 would have been strange if the local material 

 were set aside, and we may well believe that the 

 famous foundation stones of Medeshamstede, of 

 which Hugo Candidus * gives from his own in- 

 spection so impressive an account, were derived 

 largely, if not entirely, from the neighbouring 

 quarries ; while the Saxon remains still existing 

 at Peterborough furnish clear evidence of the use 

 of Barnack stone. 



Dependent as we are on a comparatively few 

 chartularies hardly saved from the pillage of the 

 religious houses, it is well-nigh impossible to 

 determine the exact dates when the various 

 houses of the Fenland first acquired rights of 

 quarrying at Barnack, or to trace this exercise of 

 the privilege with even approximate complete- 

 ness. At least as early as the reign of the Con- 

 fessor the great abbey of Ramsey received licence ' 

 from the sister house at Peterborough to obtain 

 ' werkstan at Bernak and walstan at Burgh ' 

 for the use of their church, while in return the 

 brethren of Ramsey furnished 4,000 eels to the 

 Lenten fare of Burgh, though a writ of Henry I 

 confirming this right of Ramsey and addressed to 

 the abbot of Burgh may suggest that Peter- 

 borough afterwards repented of the bargain.*" 

 Later in the twelfth century, in 1 185, Ramsey 



In any case there would seem to exist even at the 

 present time traces of wharves on the Welland near 

 at hand. 



* Worthies (1662), 279. 



" W. J. Ashley, Sarcrj/ Historic and Economic {iSgg), 

 401. 



' Sparke, Hist. Angl. Scriptcres, p. 4. 



' Cart, of Ramsey (Rolls Ser.), i, 189. 



'" Hist. Rames. (Rolls Ser.), 229. 



93 



