Irthlingborough, Northamptonshire

The Rookery

The parade of shops situated on the right was once the site of a large house called The Rookery, we lived at the Rookery from 1956 -1962. This adjoined the old Procea Products factory where my father worked for many years as a lorry driver/mechanic. Procea was famous for making slimming bread. The Rookery was owned by Procea and split into... [more]

The Bull

This scene in 2008 looks almost exactly the same as it did in 1969. Further down (out of sight of this picture) many changes have taken place. George Burton's papershop is now a pizza parlour (didn't even know what a pizza was in the early 60s!). Duncan's Chemist shop (famously made of wood) has been demolished, oh how as a youngster... [more]

Northamptonshire Living Memories

This is not one of Northamptonshire's most attractive boot and shoe towns - and what old buildings remain are now isolated by new buildings, some visible in this view. The house on the right was rebuilt in the 1970s and others have been rendered, with few original windows surviving. The Victorian chapel on the right is now an auction saleroom.

Northamptonshire Living Memories

This view, looking into the High Street from the market square, is distinguished by the crocketted and slender medieval Market Cross - a reminder of Irthlingborough's 11th-century market town origins. The National Provincial Bank on the right is now the post office, while the shops on the left have since been demolished to make way for a car park.

Northamptonshire Living Memories

Another view of the Market Cross, this time looking north, shows its knobbly crockets to their best advantage. The cross at the top of the shaft was lost many years before. The Bull Hotel, rebuilt in the 1930s, is a somewhat pedestrian and incongruous mock-Tudor effort, while the house on the left is now a bistro.