TOPOGRAPHY 



THE BOROUGH OF NORTHAMPTON 



Ham tune (x cent.) ; Nor9hamtune, Northan- 

 tone (xi cent.) ; Norhthamtune, Norhanthon, 

 Norhantuna, Norhantona (xii cent.) ; Norhamptone 

 (town seal) (liii cent.). 



Northampton, the county town, lies mainly to 

 the north and east of the River Nene, the oldest 

 part of the town being on a hill which rises from 194 ft. 

 above sea level at the west bridge near Castle station 

 to 294 ft. at the prison near the site of the old north 

 gate. The road from London and Old Stratford, 

 joined south of the river by the 

 road from Oxford and Tow- 

 cester, runs due north through 

 the town towards Market 

 Harborough and Leicester, 

 and is intersected at right 

 angles in the middle of the 

 town, at All Saints' Church, 

 by the road from Davcntry to 

 Little Billing. From here also, 

 roads run to Kettering and to 

 Wellingborough, and it is in 

 this direction that the chief 

 expansion in the igih and 

 20th centuries has taken place. 

 West of the river lie the 

 suburbs of Duston and Dallington, extending from 

 the medieval suburb of St. Jamas' End; to the south 

 of the river, and west and east of the London Road 

 lie the rapidly expanding suburbs of Far Cotton and 

 Hardingstone, beyond the medieval suburb of St. 

 Leonard's End. To the north, along the Market Har- 

 borougii ro'.d, the municip.ility now includes Kings- 

 thorpe, an independent royal manor in the Middle 

 Ages, and outside the parliamentary boundary until 

 1918. The remains of the town fields are seen in the 

 Race Course, once Northampton Heath, between the 

 Kettering and Market Harborough roads, where the 

 freemen had grazing rights down to 1882, and in 

 Cow Meadow, Calvesholme and Midsummer Meadow, 

 lying along the river to the south of the town. 



The first plans for a railway, deposited in 1830, 

 show the line passing through Ashton, Roade and 

 Ellsworth, avoiding Northampton. In 1831 the 

 Corporation of Northampton, who owned an estate 

 at Bugbrooke, took up the same attitude as other 

 local landowners in opposing the project for a railway. 



Borough or North- 



AMPTOhf. Gulfs OH a 



mount i-ert a castle with 

 three tmoers supported by 

 two leopards rampant or. 



Later, however, they were acting with a committee 

 of inhabitants of the town in pressing for the line to 

 be brought as near to Northampton as possible. 

 Stephenson reported against the route through the 

 town. The bill for the railway was thrown out in 1832, 

 it was thought by the opposition of the landowners, but 

 a subsequent bill received the Royal assent on 6 May 

 1833. The London Midland and Scottish Railway 

 now runs from London through Northampton to 

 Rugby and the north ; lines run also to Leicester, 

 Kettering, Peterborough, Market Harborough and 

 Bedford. The station in Cotton End, known as 

 Bridge Street, was opened in 1845, the Castle Station 

 in 1859, the latter being enlarged in 1 881 so as to 

 become the chief station. The station in St. John's 

 Street was opened in 1872. The Grand Junction 

 Canal joins the Nene at Northampton, this branch 

 having been completed in 1815. Tram lines were 

 first laid down in the town in 1881 and were electrifie.1 

 in 1903. An early omnibus service was run to Welling- 

 borough, and since 1919 motor omnibus services 

 have run to the villages round the town and bring 

 in thousands of both buyers and sellers to the 

 market. 



The earliest reference to Northampton in writing 

 occur.s in 914, and though the archasological evidence 

 clearly indicates occupation of the castle site in the 

 Romano-British and Anglo-Saxon periods,^ no settle- 

 ment of any importance seems to have existed 

 at Northampton before the time of the Danish con- 

 quest. The Danes appear to have made it a centre 

 for military and administrative purposes during the 

 thirty years of their undisturbed occupation (877-91 2) ; 

 by 918 ^ it had a jarl and an army dependent upon it, 

 whose territory extended to the Welland.^ Thus, 

 after its reconquest by Edward in 918 it naturally 

 became the centre of one of the new shires organised 

 in the district recovered from the Danes, and in 940 it 

 successfully resisted the invading forces of Anlaf 

 Guthfrithson, the Danish ruler of Northumbria.* 

 As in the case of other Danish towns, however, 

 the military centre seems to have rapidly become 

 a trading centre, for in loio it is described as a 

 ' port,' and in spite of the burning in that year 

 by Thorkil's Danes* and the ravages of Edwin's 

 and Morcar's forces in 1065,* it possessed about 

 316 houses in 1086, and ranked between Warwick 



' ^tioe. Arch. Sot. Rep. 1882, pp. 243- 

 251. On the evidence here given, the 

 caitle-roound itielf cannot be pre- 

 Norman ; V.C.H. Ncrihantt. i, 219. 



' Accepting the chronology of W. J. 

 Corbett, Camb. Med. Hist, iii, 364. 



• Angl. Sax. Chron. s.a. 921. (Parker 

 MS.) 



' Simeon of Durham, Opera [Rolls Ser.], 

 ii, 93 [s.a. 939). 

 ' Angl. Sax. Chron. (Laud. MS.) 

 • Angl. Sax. Chron. (Cott. MS.Tib. B iv.). 



