Mawsley

Birch Spinney and Mawsley Marsh is a 12.3-hectare (30-acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest north-west of Broughton in Northamptonshire.Birch Spinney is a rare type of ash-maple woodland partly on peat. Mawsley Marsh is described by Natural England as "one of the finest remaining Northamptonshire marshes", with flora including blunt-flowered rush, jointed rush and water horsetail. There is also a stretch of a dismantled railway line.There is no access to the site but a footpath from Great Cransley (not Mawsley) runs along the boundary of Mawsley Marsh.

Thorpe Malsor is a village and civil parish 2 miles (3 km) west of Kettering, Northamptonshire, England. The population at the 2011 Census was 145.

Cransley is a civil parish in Northamptonshire, England. It contains the village of Great Cransley but Little Cransley is in the adjacent parish of Broughton. At the time of the 2001 census, Cransley parish had 283 inhabitants, increasing to 305 at the 2011 Census.The villages name means 'Crane'/Herons' wood/clearing'.Thomas Crooke, the noted sixteenth-century preacher, was a native of Cransley; he was the ancestor of the Crooke baronets of Baltimore, County Cork.

Loddington is a village and civil parish about 3 miles (5 km) west of Kettering, Northamptonshire, England. The 2001 Census recorded a parish population of 477 people including the neighbouring parish of Orton. The 2011 Census recorded the parish population as 520 people.

Cransley Hall is a Grade II* listed[1] country manor house in the village of Great Cransley, near Kettering in Northamptonshire. It is set in its own grounds which include a lake created by monks in the fifteenth century. Originally built in around 1580, the Hall has over fifteen bedrooms and ornately decorated reception rooms, including Italianate plasterwork in the dining room. The Hall was originally built by Dame Alice Owen, widowed three times, latterly to Judge Thomas Owen. Following his death she left her home in Islington, London, and moved to Cransley Hall. Owen also founded Dame Alice Owen's School. The Hall bears the arms of later owners, Sir Thomas Cecil (c.1595) and Sir Henry Robinson (d. 1727).It passed to the Rose family in 1791, remaining in their hands till 1904.

Walgrave is a village and civil parish in West Northamptonshire, England. At the time of the 2001 census, the parish's population was 822 people, increasing to 868 at the 2011 Census.The village's name means 'Old's grove'. The village of Old is nearby and the main component is likely to be the same.

The Kettering Ironstone Railway was an industrial 3 ft (914 mm) narrow gauge railway that served the ironstone quarries around Kettering.

Orton is a village and civil parish about 3 miles (5 km) west of Kettering, in North Northamptonshire, England. The villages name means 'Higher farm/settlement' or 'ridge farm/settlement'.

Faxton is an abandoned village and chapelry in the county of Northamptonshire in England. Nearby are the villages of Old, Lamport and Mawsley and the Northampton & Lamport Railway. It is believed that the name Faxton comes from the Scandinavian Fakr and the Anglo-Saxon tun, meaning Fakr's Farm. This would indicate that Faxton grew from a Viking or Norse settler's farmstead and therefore would date from approximately the 9th century The Domesday Book, naming Faxton as the Manor of Fextone, notes that the population was of approximately 60 to 80 people. The village is documented as having consisted of a church, a rectory, a hall, an aviary, almshouses and a number of ponds. Lady Danvers founded the parish's almshouses for four persons and, six years later, Jane Kemsey bequeathed £100 to it.Archaeological evidence has been found of settlement at Faxton as early as around 1200.It has been said that in an attempt to escape the plague in London in 1665, a family relocated to Faxton with their servants, one of whom carried the fatal disease which spread and almost wiped out the village. However, this tale is disproved by comparing the number of householders recorded in the hearth tax lists for Faxton in years before and after that date. 30 householders were listed in 1662, but 34 were recorded for the year ending 25 March 1674.Former residents have recalled that Faxton could only be reached by horse-drawn vehicles, as none of the roads leading to it were made up to accommodate motor vehicles; they considered that to be a major factor in the decline of the village.The parish church of St Denis suffered extensive vandalism during the early 20th century. It ceased to be used for public worship in 1939 and was demolished in 1958.There is now just one house standing on this remote hilltop location, overlooking the rolling farmland. The Northamptonshire Record Office holds the christening, marriage and burial registers for the parish.

Broughton is a large village and civil parish in North Northamptonshire, England. The village is around 2 miles (3.2 km) south-west of Kettering and is bypassed by the A43 road. At the 2011 census, the population of the parish was 2,208.The village's name is derived from Old English meaning "fortification farm/settlement" or, perhaps, "brook farm/settlement".Broughton appears in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Burtone. The church (St. Andrew), which is mostly early 14th century (although the chancel was actually rebuilt in 1828), incorporates part of a (12th century) Norman aisleless church at the south-west angle, including the reset south doorway with colonettes, scallop capitals and zigzags. The village has some notable Jacobean houses.Broughton currently has one pub, The Red Lion; it used to also have The Sun but that closed. A protest to keep the pub running was fought for by driving a tank to Kettering Borough Council offices but no appeal has been won. The village also has three shops. It used to have a separate post office; that is now part of one of the shops. Many years ago, it had a cinema, five bakers, 7 pubs, 6 shops, a petrol station, and a butcher.

Old (previously Wold and before that Wolde) is a village and civil parish in West Northamptonshire, England. At the time of the 2001 census, the parish's population was 308 people, and the population increased to 490 at the 2011 Census.Old is near the village of Walgrave, and has a church, village hall, pub and park. It was once home to the haulage company Knights of Old, but they were later based in Kettering. As with many villages, the number of farms has decreased; two shops, a blacksmith, a butcher and a second pub also disappeared.

St Andrew's Church is an Anglican church and the parish church of Old, Northamptonshire. It is a Grade I listed building and stands at Church Lane, on the south side of the village.There is no reference to a church or priest in the entry for the parish in the Domesday Book, which was compiled in 1086. This may indicate the absence of a church building at that stage or, alternatively, only the absence of a resident priest. Most of the current church building was erected in the 13th and 14th centuries and is constructed of square coursed lias with ashlar dressings and a slate roof. There is a chancel, a clerestoried nave of four bays with a south aisle, north porch and west tower. The chancel arch is of 15th-century construction, when it appears that significant further work was carried out such as the addition of the clerestory and porch as well as widening of the aisle. A monument whose Latin inscription commemorates Alexander Ibbs, a rector of the parish who died in 1606, is set in the north wall of the chancel. The church was extensively restored in 1874–5. Alterations at that time included the creation of a vestry and an organ chamber, both leading from the chancel, provision of a barrel roof to the chancel, a new roof to the aisle, removal of a west gallery and alterations to some of the windows.The parish registers survive from 1559, the historic registers being deposited at Northamptonshire Record Office.Old is part of a united benefice which also includes the parishes of Hannington, Scaldwell and Walgrave with each village retaining its own church.