Raunds

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Map sources for Raunds at grid reference SP9972

Raunds is a small market town situated in rural Northamptonshire, England. It has a population of 8,275 (2001 census) and is part of the East Northamptonshire district.

1 Geography
2 History
3 Nearby settlements
4 References
5 Sources
6 External links

[edit] Geography

Approximately 15 miles to the north-east of Northampton the town is located on the edge of the Nene valley, and surrounded on all sides by arable farming land. Raunds is home to the manufacturing plant of RPC Containers and a large Hotpoint distribution centre, and recently new depots for Robert Wiseman Dairies and Avery Dennison have been established.

Raunds is quite close to Stanwick Lakes ^[1], which is a country park developed from old gravel pits and managed by the Rockingham Forest Trust. This park is internationally recognised for its birdlife, and can be reached on foot, from Raunds, by walking along Meadows Lane bridleway.

During the 1960's Raunds was one of the many settlements considered for expansion as part of the "new town" development of south-eastern England.

Raunds has two primary schools and one secondary school which has specialist Sports College status.

[edit] History

In the mid-1980's, during major sand excavations in the nearby Nene valley, the remains of a Roman villa were discovered. Excavation of the area, near Stanwick, Northamptonshire, was delayed by several years while archaeologists studied the remains. In 2003 Channel 4's Time Team carried out excavations in the garden of a local person, and found remains of an Anglo-Saxon cemetery ^[2].

Raunds appears in many historical documents dating back to the Doomsday Book of 1086.

St Peter's Church in Raunds, believed to have been built in the 15th century, has the second tallest spire in Northamptonshire at 202 feet (61.5 metres). The church stands on the site of an earlier Saxon place of worship. At a point during the 15th Century the patronage of the church is known to have been changed from that of St Mary to St Peter. The church also features a rare 'left-handed kiddie fiddler' decoration above the western entrance. A tombchest dedicated to John Wales, vicar from 1447 to 1496, proves that the building has been in use for more than five hundred-and-fifty years.

Raunds was known as the home of the army boot, and played an important role in the local boot and shoe industry until its eventual decline in the 1950s and 60s. In 1905, a dispute arose about the wages to be paid to army bootmakers, which culminated in a march to London in May of that year^[3].