Kettering, Northamptonshire

Description
Kettering, a market and a union town and parish in Northamptonshire. The town stands on a hill slope near the river Ise, 14 miles NE from Northampton, and 11 SE from Market Harborough. It has a station on the M.R. main line -from which two lines go northwards, one towards Peterborough and the other towards Leicester-and a head post office. The parish comprises 2814 acres; population, 19, 454. Kettering was known to the Saxons as Kateringes, was given m 976 by Edwy to his servant Elfsige, passed to the abbots of Peterborough, and became a market-town under the abbots in the time of Henry III. Some Roman antiquities, including coins of several emperors and urns, were found in the neighbourhood in 1726. The seal of a Papal bull was also dug up during the restoration of the church. The town is governed by a local board of nine members. It is the head of a petty sessional division and county court district, and is a polling-place for the eastern division of the county. A weekly market is held on Friday, and fairs are held on the Thursday before Easter, the Friday before Whitsunday, the Friday before 11 Oct, and the Friday before St Thomas' Day. The industries include the manufacture of boots, shoes, brushes, and clothing, stay-making, currying, and leather-dressing. There are three banks, several good hotels, and three weekly newspapers. The town-hall and corn exchange, which is situated in the market-place, is a handsome edifice of brick and stone, and was opened in 1862. There are the Victoria Hall, erected in 1889, with seats for 1200 people, the Temperance Hall, Conservative, Liberal, and Working Men's Club buildings, a church institute, with a library and reading-room, and a Nonconformist reading-room. The grammar school, rebuilt in 1856, has an endowment worth about, £700 a year. The workhouse, which was erected in 1837 at a cost of £6000, is a building of stone, and has accommodation for 150 inmates. There is a police station for a division of the county police. The cemetery, opened in 1861 and enlarged in 1871, has an area of 5 acres and mortuary chapels for Church of England and Nonconformist services. There are endowed almshouses for six aged women, a dispensary, an hospital for infectious diseases, and several small charities. The parish church, dedicated to St Peter and St Paul, is a fine large building of stone chiefly in the Perpendicular style, with a lofty tower and spire. It was recently restored at a total cost of £9000. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Peterborough; gross yearly value, £1090 with residence. There is a chapel of ease dedicated to St Andrew, which is a building of stone in the Decorated style, and another erected in 1894, dedicated to St Mary the Virgin, the gift of an anonymous donor. There are also Baptist, Congregational, Primitive Methodist, and Wesleyan chapels, and a Friends' meeting-house. Gill, the expositor was a native, and Fuller the theologian lived and died here. The manor belongs to the Duke of Buccleuch and the Watson family. There is also a manor attached to the rectory, of which the rector is lord.