Description
Daventry (popularly Danetree), a market and union town, and municipal borough in Northamptonshire. The town stands on the ascent and summit of an eminence, half engirt by a range of hills, near Watling Street, the Grand Junction Canal, and the sources of the rivers Learn and Nen, 12 miles W by N from Northampton, and 74 from London. It is about 4 from Weedon station on the main line of the L. & N.W.R., and a branch line from Weedon to the town was opened in 1888. The town dates from the times of the Saxons, or perhaps from those of the ancient Britons, and was occupied in 1645 by Charles I. before the battle of Naseby. It contains some good houses, and presents a cleanly and respectable appearance. It is a borough by prescription, was first chartered by Elizabeth in 1756, is governed by a mayor, four aldermen, and twelve councillors, who also act as the urban sanitary authority, is the head of a petty sessional division and county court district; and has a head post office, two banks, some good hotels, a town-hall, remains of an ancient priory, two churches, Roman Catholic, Congregational, and Wesleyan chapels, a workhouse, an endowed grammar school, an endowed charity school, and other charities amounting to about £600 a year. The priory was Cluniac, founded in 1090 by Hugh de Leycestre, and given by Henry VIII. to Wolsey for his colleges, and the remains of it consist chiefly of doorways and windows supposed to have belonged to the refectory. The church of the priory was long used as the parish church, but gave place in 1752 to a new edifice, a building of stone in the Classic style, consisting of chancel, nave, aisles, and a western tower with an octagonal spire. The other church, which was erected in 1840 as a chapel of ease to the parish church, is a building of red brick consisting of chancel, nave, and bell turret. Markets are held on Wednesdays, and a fair for the sale of cattle the second Tuesday in every month, and on the 27 Oct., or, when this falls on Sunday, on the following day. Fairs are also held for cheese on the second Tuesday in April and Oct., and a horse show is held in September. Daventry was formerly noted for the manufacture of whips, but this trade has declined, and the chief industry now is the manufacture of boots and shoes. The town is municipally coextensive with the parish. The Finch-Hattons, Earls of Winchelsea, take from it the title of Baron; and Holland, the translator of the Rhemish Testament, Bishop G. Andrew, and Smith the engraver, were natives.
The parish includes also the hamlet of Drayton. Acreage, 3633; population, 3939. A vast camp, called Danes Hill or Borough Hill, foot-shaped, 17,900 yards in circuit, defended variously by two, three, or four valla, and divided toward the north by two ramparts, lies in the south-eastern vicinity of the town, and has been attributed by different antiquaries to the Britons, the Romans, the Danes, and the Saxons, but seems most likely to have been the Roman station Benavenna. A parallelogramic camp of about an acre is 300 yards distant^ a spot called Burnt-walls, where arched vaults and substructions of buildings have been found, is near; and vestiges of a fortification, called John of Gaunt's Castle, but evidently Roman, are contiguous. The living is a rectory, with which the perpetual curacy of St James' is united, in the diocese of Peterborough; net yearly value, £250 with residence. Patron, the Bishop of Peterborough.
