Boughton, Northamptonshire


Boughton is a village and civil parish in the Daventry district of Northamptonshire, England, about from Northampton town centre along the A508 road between Northampton and Market Harborough. The parish area straddles both side of the road but the main part of the village is east. It is on the northern fringe of the Northampton urban area and, together with the neighbouring village of Moulton is in the preferred area for the expansion of the town.

Demographics

The 2001 census shows a population of 951, 459 male and 492 female in 369 dwellings, increasing to 1,112 at the 2011 census.

Governance

has 9 members elected every 4 years. The local authority is Daventry District Council and the village is part of Northamptonshire County Council.

Buildings

Boughton Park lies between the village and the A508 road. It has a notable collection of 18th and 19th century follies, including The Spectacles, Bunkers Hill Farm, New Park Barn which resembles a fortified castle and the castellated Hawking Tower, the main gate lodge on east side of the A508 main road. There is also a grotto north of the house and an obelisk to the south near Obelisk Rise, a large 1960s housing estate in Northampton. The follies were built by William Wentworth, 2nd Earl of Strafford, a friend of Horace Walpole in the late 18th century. The setting of the follies may be affected by the proposed construction of Northampton's northern ring-road and the expansion of the town.
Boughton Hall was the home of the Wentworth family although the original hall has gone. The current house dates from 1844 in the Tudor style.
Holly Lodge lies just outside the park and is not strictly a folly but a house made to mimic the follies themselves. It is close to The Spectacles and built by Northampton architect Alexander Milne in 1857-61 for chemist Philadelphus Jeyes whose younger brother John Jeyes founded the chain of pharmacies and was famous as the inventor of Jeyes Fluid.
St John's Church surviving fragments are to the north of the Green. The church has been in ruins since at least 1757, and was significantly damaged further in 1784 when the spire collapsed. The current church of St John Baptist is in the village and believed to date from c.1350, with extensions in 1807 and 1874. It has a monument to Mary Tillemont.
Boughton Primary School is in Moulton Road. The original school building of 1841 is to the north of the church tower.
Boughton House, a stately home also in Northamptonshire, is located to the north of Kettering, approximately away and not connected to this village.

Other details

The infamous highwayman, "Captain Slash" was detained whilst attempting robbery at Boughton Fayre which was situated on Boughton Green, now a large agricultural triangle on the Moulton road. He was subsequently tried and hanged in Northampton before a large crowd of onlookers on 21 July 1826.