Northampton

• 1. Introduction

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  Northampton sits precisely 60 miles north-west of London on the River Nene, and for much of England's history that central position made it one of the most politically consequential places in the kingdom. Thirty-two Parliaments were held within its castle walls. A university established there in 1261 briefly threatened to outrank Oxford. A Prime Minister elected from its constituency became the only one ever to be assassinated. Yet by 1484, the Mayor of Northampton declared the town "in great desolation and ruin," and it has spent centuries since cycling through destruction and reinvention. What turned a Bronze Age encampment into a national stage, then reduced that stage to rubble, and then rebuilt it again? The story moves through Viking sieges, a devastating fire, a shoemaking industry that clothed armies, and a designation as a New Town that changed its population forever.

• 2. Castle, Charter, and Parliament

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  Simon de Senlis, the first Earl of Northampton, is thought to have built the castle around 1084 from earth and timber. It was later rebuilt in stone, and from the reign of King Henry I in 1130 it became an occasional royal residence. King John moved the Treasury there in 1205. The castle's significance went far beyond storage: 32 Parliaments met within its walls, and it was the site of the trial of Thomas Becket in 1164 and the publication of the Assize of Northampton in 1176. The Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton, which declared peace with Scotland, and the Statute of Northampton in 1328 were among the major decisions reached there. Royal tournaments and feasts filled the grounds in between sessions. On the 18th of November 1189, King Richard I granted the town its first charter, exchanging civic rights for money to fund his crusades. King John then authorised the appointment of William Tilly as the town's first Mayor in 1215, ordering that "twelve of the better and more discreet residents of your town" join him as councillors. The fact that only London, York, and King's Lynn held mayors at that date measures how seriously the Crown took Northampton.

• 3. University, Jews, and Plague

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  In 1261, King Henry III granted a royal charter establishing a university in Northampton that would have been the third oldest in England had it survived. Its students were already attracting scholars away from Oxford and Cambridge, which alarmed the Crown's advisors. When university members sided with Simon de Montfort's rebellion against the King, Henry III dissolved the institution in 1265, and signed a royal decree banning any future university in Northampton. The prohibition stood for 740 years. Meanwhile, in the 13th century the town housed a significant Jewish community centred on Gold Street. Two years after Edward I passed the Statute of the Jewry in 1275, some Jewish residents were executed and the remainder were driven from town. A medieval Jewish cemetery and the Northampton Medieval Synagogue survive as archaeological evidence of that community. Then in 1349, the Black Death killed more than half of Northampton's population. By 1377, only 2,200 people remained. In 1484, the Mayor's declaration of "great desolation and ruin" reflected a town that had been pillaged, plagued, and politically sidelined. The Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1538 then removed what remained of the medieval religious infrastructure, and the Plague between March and September 1638 killed another 665 people.

• 4. Civil War and the Great Fire

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  Northampton was decisively pro-Parliament during the English Civil War, a stance rooted in generations of religious dissent stretching back to the Lollards and reinforced by a strong Puritan tradition. The town corporation had refused to provide troops to King Charles I in 1632, and refused to pay the ship money tax in 1636. When war broke out in 1642, Northampton became the main Parliamentarian garrison for the south-east Midlands. During the conflict, the town's shoemakers produced over 4,000 pairs of leather shoes and 600 pairs of cavalry jack-boots for the Parliamentary armies, and a further 2,000 pairs for Cromwell's New Model Army in 1648. In 1643, Prince Rupert attacked with approximately 2,000 men and was beaten back at the North Gate. After the war, the restoration of Charles II in 1660 brought swift punishment: the King ordered the destruction of the town's walls and the partial demolition of the castle in 1662 as revenge for the town's disloyalty to his father. Then in 1675, a fire started by sparks from an open fire in a thatched cottage near the castle spread eastwards on strong westerly winds and consumed three-quarters of the town centre in 24 hours. Around 600 buildings were destroyed, with losses estimated at £150,000. Local fundraising brought in roughly £25,000 for rebuilding. In a gesture of reconciliation, Charles II donated timber from the royal forests of Salcey and Whittlebury. Streets were widened, and buildings were replaced with brick and stone to prevent another catastrophe.

• 5. Shoes and Industry

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  By the end of the 18th century, Northampton had become a major centre of footwear and leather manufacture. In 1801 the population stood at 7,020; by 1831 it had more than doubled to 15,351, driven largely by demand for footwear during the Napoleonic Wars. A third of adult males in the town were shoemakers at that point. The Grand Union Canal reached Northampton in 1815, connecting it directly to the Midlands coalfields and to Birmingham, Manchester, and London. The first railway arrived in 1845, and further lines followed through the 1850s and 1870s. Following World War I, the shoe industry began a long decline even though the town's factories had supplied over 23 million pairs of boots to the armed forces. The British Timken tapered roller bearing factory opened at Duston in 1941 as a wartime shadow factory, eventually employing over 4,000 workers at its peak before closing in 2002. Princess Benedikte of Denmark opened Northampton's Carlsberg brewery in 1974, the first Carlsberg brewery outside Denmark. By 2017, the town's annual economic output as measured by gross value added was worth £7.31 billion, with private-sector employers now concentrated in distribution and finance rather than manufacturing. A handful of specialist shoemaking firms, among them Church's, Crockett and Jones, and Tricker's, still carry the town's leather tradition forward.

• 6. A Prime Minister and a Radical

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  Spencer Perceval was elected as one of Northampton's two MPs in 1796. He became Prime Minister in 1809, the only person to reach that office having previously served as both Solicitor General and Attorney General. On the 11th of May 1812, he was shot in the House of Commons lobby by a businessman named John Bellingham, becoming the only British Prime Minister to be assassinated. Decades later, in 1880, radical non-conformist Charles Bradlaugh won election as one of Northampton's MPs. During his campaign, a riot broke out in the Market Square during a hustings event involving multiple candidates, prompting local authorities to call in the military to disperse it. The constituency itself dates to 1295, returning two MPs to the House of Commons for centuries. In 1974, the original seat was split into Northampton North and Northampton South, each returning a single MP. Northampton has tried for city status four times: in 1992, in 2000 to mark the new millennium, in 2002 for the Golden Jubilee of Elizabeth II, and in 2022 for the Platinum Jubilee. It has failed on every occasion and remains a town.

• 7. New Town and Modern Growth

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  In 1968, Northampton was designated a New Town, and the Northampton Development Corporation was established to redevelop it in partnership with the local council. The NDC spent £205 million building new housing and industrial estates, initially in Lumbertubs, Moulton Park, and Round Spinney, and later in Briar Hill, Camp Hill, and East and West Hunsbury, largely to accommodate residents relocated from London. Between 1970 and 1985, the population grew from 105,421 to 157,217, with 15,655 new homes added. On Good Friday 1998, severe flooding killed two people and affected thousands of homes in the Far Cotton and St James areas. In 2006, Northampton became a government expansion zone under the West Northamptonshire Development Corporation. Completed projects since then include the restoration of Delapré Abbey, the rebuilding of the railway station, and the University of Northampton's move to a new £330 million waterside campus on the River Nene in 2018. That move revived a university presence first established in 1261 and then banned for 740 years. The university that opened on that campus traces its immediate history to University College Northampton, founded in 1924, which was upgraded and renamed the University of Northampton in 2005.

• 8. Music, Culture, and the Built Landscape

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  The composers Malcolm Arnold, William Alwyn, Trevor Hold, Edmund Rubbra, and Robert Walker were all born in Northampton. Gothic rock band Bauhaus formed in the town during the late 1970s and is often described as a founding force of the goth genre; spinoff bands Love and Rockets and Tones on Tail also came out of Northampton. The Beatles appeared twice at what is now The Deco theatre in 1963, first as part of the Tommy Roe and Chris Montez tour, and then on their own headline tour. The Northampton Symphony Orchestra traces its roots to 1896, making it one of the oldest community orchestras in the United Kingdom. The built environment holds its own set of surprises. No. 78 Derngate is the only house in England designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, remodelled in 1916-17 for Wenman Joseph Bassett-Lowke. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built around 1100 on the orders of Simon de Senlis, is one of only four remaining round churches in England and was modelled on the original Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Standing 127.45 metres tall, the National Lift Tower is visible from most of the town; a Terry Wogan radio phone-in during the 1980s coined the nickname "Northampton Lighthouse," given that Northampton is one of the furthest places from the sea in England. At the edge of Delapré Abbey, one of only three surviving Eleanor crosses still stands, erected in memory of Eleanor of Castile, whose body rested there on its journey to London.