Northamptonshire

Northamptonshire is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It is bordered by Leicestershire, Rutland and Lincolnshire to the north; Cambridgeshire to the east; Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire to the south; Oxfordshire to the south west; and Warwickshire to the west. Northampton is the largest settlement.
The county has an area of and had an estimated population of in. Northampton is located in the centre of the county, and its other principal towns include Corby and Kettering in the north-east and Wellingborough in the centre. The east and south-west are rural. For local government purposes Northamptonshire comprises two unitary authority areas, North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. The county historically included Peterborough and its surrounding area, called the Soke.
The county is characterised by low, undulating hills, particularly to the west. They are the source of several rivers, including the Avon and Welland, which form much of the northern border; the Cherwell; and the Great Ouse. The River Nene is the principal river within the county, having its source in the southwest and flowing northeast past Northampton and Wellingborough. The highest point is Arbury Hill southwest of Daventry, at.
There are Iron Age and Roman remains in the county, and in the seventh century it was settled by the Angles and Saxons, becoming part of Mercia. The county likely has its origin in the Danelaw as the area controlled from Northampton, which was one of the Five Boroughs. In the later Middle Ages and Early Modern Period the county was relatively settled, although Northampton was the location of engagements, including the 1264 Battle of Northampton during the Second Barons' War, the 1460 Battle of Northampton during the Wars of the Roses, and the decisive Battle of Naseby which destroyed the main Royalist army during the First English Civil War. During the Industrial Revolution Northamptonshire became known for its footwear, and the contemporary county has a number of small industrial centres which specialise in engineering and food processing.

History

Much of Northamptonshire's countryside appears to have remained somewhat intractable as regards early human occupation, resulting in an apparently sparse population and relatively few finds from the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic periods. In about 500 BC the Iron Age was introduced into the area by a continental people in the form of the Hallstatt culture, and over the next century a series of hill-forts were constructed at Arbury Banks, Rainsborough camp, Borough Hill, Castle Dykes, Guilsborough, Irthlingborough, and most notably of all, Hunsbury Hill. There are two more possible hill-forts at Arbury Hill and Thenford.
In the 1st century BC, most of what later became Northamptonshire became part of the territory of the Catuvellauni, a Belgic tribe, the Northamptonshire area forming their most northerly possession. The Catuvellauni were conquered by the Romans in 43 AD.
The Roman road of Watling Street passed through the county, and an important Roman settlement, Lactodurum, stood on the site of modern-day Towcester. There were other Roman settlements at Northampton, Kettering and along the Nene Valley near Raunds. A large fort was built at Longthorpe.
After the Romans left, the area eventually became part of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia, and Northampton functioned as an administrative centre. The Mercians converted to Christianity in 654 AD with the death of the pagan king Penda. From about 889 the area was conquered by the Danes and became part of the Danelaw – with Watling Street serving as the boundary – until being recaptured by the English under the Wessex king Edward the Elder, son of Alfred the Great, in 917. Northamptonshire was conquered again in 940, this time by the Vikings of York, who devastated the area, only for the county to be retaken by the English in 942.
The county was first recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, as Hamtunscire: the scire of Hamtun. The "North" was added to distinguish Northampton from the other important Hamtun further south: Southampton – though the origins of the two names are in fact different.
Rockingham Castle was built for William the Conqueror and was used as a Royal fortress until Elizabethan times. In 1460, during the Wars of the Roses, the Battle of Northampton took place and King Henry VI was captured. The now-ruined Fotheringhay Castle was used to imprison Mary, Queen of Scots, before her execution.
File:Speed Northampton.jpg|thumb|left|350px|The historic boundaries of the county shown in John Speed's map of the county in his Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine, 1611. A depiction of the town of Northampton is inset in the top left, and the city of Peterborough in the bottom right.
During the English Civil War, Northamptonshire strongly supported the Parliamentarian cause, and the Royalist forces suffered a crushing defeat at the Battle of Naseby in 1645 in the north of the county. King Charles I was imprisoned at Holdenby House in 1647.
George Washington, the first President of the United States of America, was born into the Washington family who had migrated to America from Northamptonshire in 1656. George Washington's ancestor, Lawrence Washington, was Mayor of Northampton on several occasions and it was he who bought Sulgrave Manor from Henry VIII in 1539. It was George Washington's great-grandfather, John Washington, who emigrated in 1656 from Northamptonshire to Virginia. Before Washington's ancestors moved to Sulgrave, they lived in Warton, Lancashire.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, parts of Northamptonshire and the surrounding area became industrialised. The local specialisation was shoemaking and the leather industry and became one of Britain's major centres for these crafts by the 19th century. In the north of the county a large ironstone quarrying industry developed from 1850.
In 1823 Northamptonshire was said to " a very pure and wholesome air" because of its dryness and distance from the sea. Its livestock were celebrated: "Horned cattle, and other animals, are fed to extraordinary sizes: and many horses of the large black breed are reared."
Nine years later, the county was described as "a county enjoying the reputation of being one of the healthiest and pleasantest parts of England" although the towns were "of small importance" with the exceptions of Peterborough and Northampton. In summer, the county hosted "a great number of wealthy families... country seats and villas are to be seen at every step." Northamptonshire is still referred to as the county of "spires and squires" because of the numbers of stately homes and ancient churches.
Prior to 1901 the ancient hundreds were disused. Northamptonshire was administered as four major divisions: Northern, Eastern, Mid, and Southern. During the 1930s, the town of Corby was established as a major centre of the steel industry.
Corby was designated a new town in 1950 and Northampton followed in 1968. the government is encouraging development in the South Midlands area, including Northamptonshire.

Peterborough

The city and Soke of Peterborough were part of the historic county of Northamptonshire; from the time that formal county boundaries were established by the Normans in the 11th century, to 1965. The Church of England Diocese of Peterborough that covers Northamptonshire is still centred at Peterborough Cathedral. The city of Peterborough had its own courts of quarter sessions and, from 1889, the Soke had its own county council, Soke of Peterborough County Council, making it an autonomous district of Northamptonshire.
In 1965, the Soke of Peterborough was abolished by the Local Government Boundary Commission; the city of Peterborough and the surrounding villages that were previously part of the Soke, were transferred to the newly created county of Huntingdon and Peterborough.
The new county of Huntingdon and Peterborough was short lived; it was abolished in 1974. Upon its abolishment, the city of Peterborough and the other settlements that were once part of the former Soke, were transferred to the county of Cambridgeshire, instead of being transferred back to Northamptonshire. Additionally, the former historical county of Huntingdonshire, which had been abolished along with the Soke of Peterborough in 1965 to create the County of Huntingdon and Peterborough, was not reinstated as a Shire county in its own right in 1974. Instead, Huntingdonshire was transferred to and became a district of Cambridgeshire.
Since 1965, Northamptonshire has been one of the small number of English counties that does not contain a city.

Little Bowden

In 1879, a local government district was created covering the three parishes of Market Harborough and Great Bowden and Little Bowden. When elected county councils were established in 1889, local government districts were placed entirely in one county, and thus the parish of Little Bowden, a neighbourhood of Market Harborough, was transferred from Northamptonshire to Leicestershire.

Stamford

Until 1832 and 1835, Stamford Baron St Martin which forms the southern part of the town of Stamford in Lincolnshire was part of Northamptonshire as St Martin's Without. It was later incorporated into the then Municipal Borough of Stamford under the then Parts of Kesteven.

Geography

Northamptonshire is a landlocked county in the southern part of the East Midlands, sometimes known as the South Midlands. The county contains the watershed between the River Severn and The Wash, and several important rivers have their sources in the north-west of the county, including the River Nene, which flows north-eastwards to The Wash, and the Warwickshire Avon, which flows south-west to the Severn. In 1830, it was boasted that "not a single brook, however insignificant, flows into it from any other district". In the west of the county, the hills most commonly referred to as the Northamptonshire Uplands can be found, in this area, the highest point in the county, Arbury Hill, at, can be found, just to the south of Daventry. The boundary with Lincolnshire is England's shortest ceremonial county boundary, at.
There are several towns in the county, Northampton being the largest and most populous.

Town	Population	District
Northampton	243,520	West
Corby	68,160	North
Kettering	63,150	North
Wellingborough	54,425	North
Rushden	31,685	North
Daventry	27,790	West
Brackley	16,190	West
Desborough	11,900	North
Towcester	11,330	West
Burton Latimer	10,445	North
Raunds	10,230	North

As of 2010 there were 16 settlements in Northamptonshire with a town charter:

Brackley, Burton Latimer, Corby, Daventry, Desborough, Higham Ferrers, Irthlingborough, Kettering, Northampton, Oundle, Raunds, Rothwell, Rushden, Towcester, Thrapston and Wellingborough.