A History of the County of Northampton
Title Details

263 Pages

30.5 x 20.8 cm

78 b/w, 17 line illus.

Series: Victoria County History

Imprint: Victoria County History

A History of the County of Northampton

VII: Corby and Great Oakley

Edited by Mark Page and Matthew Bristow

  • Description
  • Contents
  • Author
  • Reviews
Comprehensive and authoritative history of Corby and Great Oakley, charting their growth and development from the early medieval period to the present day.

Lying in north Northamptonshire, close to the borders with Leicestershire and Rutland, the neighbouring parishes of Corby and Great Oakley were formerly part of the ancient administrative division of Corby hundred. Both remainedagricultural villages, typical of much of rural Northamptonshire before 1932 when the landscape of the area was dramatically altered by large-scale industrialisation associated with the production of iron and steel following the discovery of rich ironstone deposits to the north and east of Corby village. Corby was most directly affected by these changes, with the parish experiencing a dramatic rise in population after the Stewarts & Lloyds Company chose toconcentrate their entire steel producing operation there. Between 1932 and 1950, the increasing population resulted in the hasty construction, firstly by the Stewarts & Lloyds Company and later by the Corby UDC, of housing estates on former agricultural land adjacent to the steelworks, before Corby was designated a New Town in April 1950 and responsibility for it passed to the Corby Development Corporation. From this point on, Great Oakley was inexorablydrawn into the expanding new town as it spread southwards, eventually being incorporated firstly into Corby urban district in1967 and in 1993 into Corby Borough.
Although Corby is perhaps best known for the social problems or"New Town Blues" that blighted it after the steelworks (the town's principal employer) closed in 1980, this volume documents the lesser known medieval and early modern history of Corby and Great Oakley; it shows how generations of inhabitants utilised the rich natural geology and the abundant woodland to supplement the local agrarian economy, before examining in detail Corby's industrialisation, physical and economic growth, post-industrial decline and 21st-century regeneration.

Mark Page is Assistant Editor, Victoria County History, Oxfordshire; Matthew Bristow is Research Manager, Victoria County History.
Introduction: Corby and Great Oakley: Agriculture and Industry in a Woodland Landscape - Mark Page
Corby to 1932 - Mark Page
Great Oakley - Mark Page
Industrial Corby and New Town 1932-79 - Cynthia Brown and Matthew Bristow
Post-Industrial Corby 1980-2012 - Cynthia Brown and Matthew Bristow

MATTHEW BRISTOW is an archaeologist and buildings historian. He was Architectural Editor of the Victoria County History and is now a Senior Investigator with Historic England.

"This book is the latest of the recent VCH volumes that have reached new heights in terms of the information they contain." LANDSCAPE HISTORY
"The most significant achievement of the volume is that it shows how this unusual twentieth-century community was shaped .This is scholarship that matches the highest standards of the volumes produced by the long-serving county editors of past generations." LOCAL HISTORIAN, January 2014

Hardcover

9781904356370

July 2013

Buy

$140.00 / £95.00

Shipping Options

Buy Fewer than 20 copies available

Buy

Purchasing options are not available in this country.

Title Details

263 Pages

3.05 x 2.08 cm

78 b/w, 17 line illus.

Series: Victoria County History

Imprint: Victoria County History