The Victoria County History of Northamptonshire

The Northamptonshire VCH Trust is currently supporting work on a volume covering Towcester Hundred. A Working Group set up in 2015 brings together volunteers, contractors and other contributors, who are researching and writing the history of the town and the surrounding villages. If you are interested in getting involved please contact David Harries by email.

The Northamptonshire Trust started work in 1997 under the chairmanship of The Rt Hon The Lord Naseby. The first ‘big red book’ for 65 years, volume V on Cleley Hundred near Towcester, was published in 2002. Previous volumes have covered Natural History, Archaeology, and Domesday Book (Volume I); Ecclesiastical History, Soke of Peterborough, and Willybrook Hundred (Volume II); Northampton Borough, Polebrook, Navisford, and Huxloe Hundreds, and Borough of Higham Ferrers (Volume III); and Higham Ferrers, Spelhoe, Hamfordshoe, Orlingbury, and Wymersley Hundreds (Volume IV). A sixth volume, Modern Industry, was published in 2007.

Volume 7 of the Northamptonshire set of VCH red books was published in 2013. This volume covers Corby, from its origins as a rural village in the medieval Rockingham forest to the designation of the New Town in 1950 and beyond, and the neighbouring parish of Great Oakley, which was most affected by Corby's extraordinary 20th-century expansion.  

The Victoria County History of Northamptonshire has been published in seven volumes. Four of the seven volumes published are on British History Online. For full access to all volumes, check your local library catalogue or your local archive.