The Victoria History of the Counties of England

Long-awaited volume for the Victoria County History of Northamptonshire covers the 6 parishes in Towcester Hundred including the historic market town of Towcester. This contribution to the Red Book series is the eighth volume of the Victoria County History of Northamptonshire. It provides accounts of Towcester hundred, encompassing 6 parishes including the historic market town of Towcester. The rolling landscape is punctuated by dispersed villages that form the hundred with each settlement linked to the Roman Watling Street that traverses the full length of the hundred. Towcester's history is inextricably linked to this transport corridor, with an important coaching trade emerging in the 17th and 18th centuries. The hundred had a notable range of localised industries by the 1800s, including shoemaking, lacemaking and framework knitting. Its predominantly agricultural landscape was interrupted by the coming of the Grand Union Canal and railway in the 19th century, bringing industry, manufacture and expansion.