Scenic Place in North Northamptonshire

Fotheringhay in Northamptonshire is a small village on the River Nene whose castle, now reduced to a single grassy motte and a fragment of masonry, was the site of two of the most significant events in English history: the birth of Richard III in 1452 and the execution of Mary Queen of Scots in February 1587. The combination of these historical associations and the peaceful rural character of the village and its Norman church creates one of the most poignant heritage sites in the English Midlands. The execution of Mary Queen of Scots at Fotheringhay was one of the most dramatic and most consequential events of the Elizabethan period. Mary was imprisoned in various English castles for nineteen years before Elizabeth finally agreed to her execution following her implication in the Babington Plot of 1586. The execution took place in the great hall of the castle on 8 February 1587 and Mary's courage in the face of death, combined with the botched nature of the execution itself, created an immediate legend that has sustained popular interest in the event for four centuries. The village church of St Mary and All Saints, a magnificent Perpendicular Gothic church of the fifteenth century that was originally the collegiate church of the castle, preserves the tombs of Edmund of Langley and his wife in the chancel and provides a tangible connection to the medieval and Tudor history of this remarkable place. The riverside walk between the church and the castle motte provides the most direct encounter with the landscape that witnessed these events.

Oundle is one of the finest and most complete small market towns in England, a Northamptonshire town of Jurassic limestone buildings, medieval street pattern and considerable architectural distinction that has survived the pressures of growth and development with an unusual degree of integrity. The town is dominated by Oundle School, one of the older English public schools, whose buildings form a significant part of the townscape and whose presence has given Oundle a cultural vitality and an architectural investment that distinguish it from comparable Northamptonshire market towns. The core of the town around the market place and the Church of St Peter is a remarkably coherent collection of seventeenth and eighteenth-century limestone architecture, the local Barnack rag and Weldon stone giving the buildings a warm golden-brown colour that is characteristic of the limestone belt running through Northamptonshire and into the Cotswolds. The church itself has a fine medieval spire and interior of considerable quality, and the surrounding streetscape of the town has an architectural consistency that reflects several centuries of building in a single local material by craftsmen who understood its qualities. The Talbot Inn in the market place is one of the most historically interesting buildings in Oundle, a seventeenth-century coaching inn built partly from stone salvaged from Fotheringhay Castle, the castle a few miles to the north where Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned and executed in 1587. The staircase within the Talbot is said to be the original from Fotheringhay, a claim that has never been definitively established but that adds a layer of resonant historical association to an already distinguished building. The Nene Valley and the water meadows surrounding the town provide excellent walking and cycling, and the village of Fotheringhay with its castle mound and fine church is a short drive away.

Rockingham Castle near Corby in Northamptonshire is a royal castle of Norman origins that has been developed into a private house of considerable historical interest over nine centuries, its position on a commanding ridge above the Welland Valley providing exceptional views across the valley into Leicestershire and the castle fabric reflecting the transformation from medieval fortification to comfortable country house that occurred progressively from the Tudor period onward. The castle has been occupied by the Watson family since the sixteenth century and is open to visitors during the summer season. The castle was built by William the Conqueror and subsequently used by the English kings, particularly John and the Edwards, as a hunting base for the royal forest of Rockingham that once covered much of this part of Northamptonshire. The great circular earthwork banks of the Norman fortification still define the outer perimeter of the castle, enclosing the courtyard and later buildings within the Norman defensive scheme. Henry VIII granted the castle to Edward Watson in 1530 and subsequent generations of the family transformed the military structure into the house visible today. Charles Dickens stayed at Rockingham Castle several times between 1847 and 1852 as the guest of the Watsons, and he used the castle as the model for Chesney Wold in Bleak House, giving the building a literary association of considerable prestige. The connection is celebrated in the castle's interpretive material and the rooms used by Dickens during his visits retain an association with the novelist's extraordinary imagination. The Welland Valley landscape visible from the castle ridge, the ancient ridge and furrow earthworks in the surrounding fields and the extensive estate woodland provide an excellent setting for the castle visit.