Raunds

Geography[edit]

Raunds is situated 21 miles (34 km) north-east of Northampton. The town is on the southern edge of the Nene Valley and surrounded by arable farming land.

Nearest civilian airports are Luton 50 miles and East Midlands 65 miles.

Raunds is close to Stanwick Lakes, a country park developed from gravel pits and managed by the Rockingham Forest Trust.^[1] This park is internationally recognised for its birdlife and can be reached on foot from Raunds along Meadow Lane bridleway.

History[edit]

In the mid-1980s, during sand excavations in the Nene Valley, the remains of a Roman villa were discovered. Excavation of the area, near Stanwick, was delayed by several years while archaeologists studied the remains. In 2002 Channel 4's Time Team excavated a garden and found remains of an Anglo-Saxon cemetery.^[2]

The place-name 'Raunds' is first attested in an Anglo-Saxon charter of circa 972-992, where it appears as Randan. It appears as Rande in the Domesday Book of 1086, and in a later survey of Northamptonshire as Raundes. The name is the plural of the Old English rand, meaning 'border'.^[3]

Raunds played a role in the boot and shoe industry until its decline in the 1950s and '60s. In 1905 a dispute arose about wages to be paid to army bootmakers, which culminated in a march to London in May that year.^[4] Several factories remained into the early 1990s but all are now closed, with many being demolished and housing estates built. The Coggins boot factory was the last to go, and the site of it is now Coggins Close. The land on which the shoe factory and the original Coggins houses stood (not Coggins Close), was purchased by Robert Coggins on 25 February 1899 from the Duchy of Lancaster, for the sum of £14.10s.0d (£14.50). The houses are still there, but were sold to Charles Robinson of Wellingborough in 1934. Robert Coggins lived in the hall where his picture hangs in the meeting room, and he is buried in St Peter's Churchyard. There is no industry in the town now, although there are some industrial sites on the outskirts.

Raunds once held the record for the highest temperature in Britain at 36.7 °C (98.1 °F), set on 10 August 1911, which stood until 1990.^[5]

Raunds was the home of broadcaster, writer and television personality Sir David Frost in his youth, when his father, Paradine Frost, was a minister at the Methodist church, before moving to Beccles in Suffolk.^{[citation needed]}

Notable buildings[edit]

The Historic England website contains details of a total of 19 listed buildings and six scheduled monuments at or in the vicinity of Raunds.^[6] Amongst them are:

• St Peter's Church, Church Street.
• The Manor House, 2 Manor Street.