Rothwell, Northamptonshire

Description
Rothwell, a small town and a parish in Northamptonshire. The town stands 2 1/2 miles SSE of Desborough station and 2 1/2 SW from Rushton station (both on the main line of the M.R.), and 4 NW of Kettering. It is bounded on the N and NW by the river Ise, was in former times a place of some note and importance, and had an Augustinian nunnery founded by the Clare family. It has a bank, and boots and shoes are manufactured in considerable quantities. There is a post, money order, and telegraph office under Kettering, and a fair is held on Trinity Monday and the four following days for stock and pedlery. The market-house was commenced between 1575 and 1580 by Sir Thomas Tresham of Rushton, and has since remained unfinished. Jesus Hospital, founded by Owen Ragsdale in 1593, now maintains twenty-six poor persons. There are also several small charities, which are distributed in the form of food, fuel, and clothing. The church is a fine building in the Norman, Early English, and later styles, consisting of chancel, nave, aisles, and a western tower. A crypt beneath the S aisle was discovered about the middle of the 18th century, and contains human bones stacked in order, and computed to have belonged to at least about 3800 persons. These bones are supposed to have been merely a clearance from an old burial-ground. The church contains many very ancient and interesting tombs and monuments. There are Congregational and Wesleyan Methodist chapels. The parish contains also the hamlet of Thorpe Underwood and the township of Orton. Acreage, 4613; population of the civil parish of Rothwell, 3378; of the ecclesiastical, 3451; of Orton, 73. The manor belongs to the Tibbits family. There is a petrifying spring. The living is a vicarage, united with the chapelry of Orton, in the diocese of Peterborough; joint gross value, £155 with residence.