County town: Northampton
Northamptonshire was established as a shire in the 10th century following the reconquest of the Danelaw. Northampton, sited on the Nene, was one of the Five Boroughs and a significant Saxon trading centre.
Northamptonshire is a midland county of limestone uplands and river valleys, drained by the Nene and its tributaries. Its landscape is characterised by ironstone villages of warm orange-brown stone and a remarkable concentration of medieval church spires — 'the county of spires and squires'. The county's leather industry, based in Northampton and the surrounding towns, made it England's boot and shoe capital from the 17th century onward, supplying the armies of Cromwell and Wellington alike. Great houses like Boughton, Althorp, and Burghley reflect centuries of powerful aristocratic landowners. The county was a battleground in both the Wars of the Roses and the Civil War.
Northamptonshire was surveyed in the Domesday Book of 1086, William the Conqueror's great census of England. The survey recorded 358 settlements in the county, with details of their lords, landholders, population, and resources.
Browse 358 Domesday settlements in NorthamptonshireEngland's 39 historic counties, established between the 9th and 12th centuries, are the framework through which English local history, legal records, and landscape have been organised for a thousand years. Most survive today as ceremonial counties, their boundaries deeply embedded in place identity.
An Aubrey report for a specific location in Northamptonshire draws on historical maps, archaeological records, Domesday data and landscape history to tell the full story of any site in the county.
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