Abington

This view down St Giles Street has the Guildhall tower in the distance and the 1938 Co-op on the right, a building in Art Deco style. The ter- race with the deeply-shadowed eaves in the middle distance is the 17th- century Massingberd Charity Gift buildings, rebuilt in 1864.
An extract from from"Northampton Town and City Memories".

The carving exudes an almost barbaric air: the capitals are full of curi- ous foliage inhabited by mythical winged creatures, writhing figures and animals, and the arches are a profusion of geometric decoration — a marked contrast to the more chaste Gothic style just then emerging from France. The tower was rebuilt in the 17th century, apart from the arch into the nave we see in this view of the interior.
An extract from from"Northampton Town and City Memories".

This view is taken from beside the 17th-century pre-fire stone survivor, Hazelrigg House, looking east along the tram tracks, with the road widening towards Horse Market. All the buildings on the left have recently been replaced (in 2002) by the Sol Central complex, which includes an Ibis Hotel.
An extract from from"Northampton Town and City Memories".

Town government now alternated between Liberals and Conservatives, with the town achieving independence from Northamptonshire in 1888 when it became a county borough. By the 1860s, the corporation was feeling cramped in the 15th-century Guildhall; as the new Conservative mayor, Christopher Markham, pointed out, it would long ago have been replaced but for the ‘great control the ratepayers really exercised over the gentlemen sent there to take care of their pockets’. Following an architectural competition, which was won by Edward Godwin of Bristol, the foundation stone was laid in 1861, and the building formally opened in 1864. Besides council chambers and offices there was a library, which was intended to raise the standards of the local workers’ education. The views in this book show the Guildhall after it was extended in the same style , virtually doubling it in width. The common fields of Northampton were enclosed in the 1780s; the commons were retained and vested in the corporation. These included the Race Course, now Race Course Recreation Ground, and Cow Meadow, now Beckett’s Park open space, and other meadows along the River Nene valley (see pages 42). The west part of Cow Meadow was built over as the old cattle market in the 1870s, which has now been replaced. Cow Meadow had a dual purpose as far back as 1703, when pleasure walks were laid out and avenues of trees planted. A chalybeate spring here raised hopes of Northampton aping Bath or Buxton as a spa town, and in 1784 a new walk was laid out from Beckett’s Well to this spring, Vigo Well — fences were erected to separate the quality from the cows. Renamed rather more grandly Beckett’s Park, it is one of the town’s best parks, and makes good use of the River Nene along its south side. The River Nene was an important trade artery in the earlier Middle Ages, but the town declined as those nearer the sea prospered. It was not until the canal age that Northampton again had good water routes for its trade. The Grand Junction Canal reached the town in 1815 as a branch from Gayton Junction. In a mere five miles it has no less than 17 locks, and merges with the Nene Navigation. The London to Birmingham Railway passed four miles west of the town in the 1830s, a fact seen by some, including Brabner’s ‘Gazetteer’, as ‘a great mistake’; but in truth Northampton was off the route, which had itself been shifted westward by fox-hunting landowners. The railway did arrive in 1845 as a line from Blisworth Junction to Peterborough. Other lines followed, and the final indignity for the site of Northampton Castle was to have a goods shed and goods yard built over the site of the bailey and keep in 1876, expanding the area lost to Castle Station in 1859.
An extract from from"Northampton Town and City Memories".

Note the stylish lettering of T C Palmer on the left-hand corner (we also see it on the right of N40003 below). This view was taken looking west down Gold Street from in front of All Saints’ Church. Boots the Chemists have now left County Chambers on the opposite corner.
An extract from from"Northampton Town and City Memories".