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West Hunsbury

Archaeological sites in NorthamptonshireAreas of NorthamptonCivil parishes in NorthamptonshireEngvarB from July 2016Hill forts in Northamptonshire
Iron Age sites in England

West Hunsbury is a housing estate in the south of Northampton, England, situated around 2 miles (3 km) away from the town centre, and 0.5 miles (1 km) away from the M1 via junction 15A. It is part of the Hunsbury residential area, which also constitutes East Hunsbury east of Towcester Road. Shelfleys is an earlier name for the area and still appears on signs, maps and bus destination indicators. However Hunsbury is an old name. Iron ore was formerly quarried in the area. This had begun by 1873 and an ironworks called Hunsbury Ironworks was in the course of being built in that year. The quarries were worked by several companies and individual owners, two of which companies used the name "Hunsbury" in their titles. The area is part of the Borough of Northampton. The area was developed in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s as part of the expansion of Northampton.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article West Hunsbury (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors).

West Hunsbury
Hunsbury Close,

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Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 52.217 ° E -0.924 °
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Hunsbury Close

Hunsbury Close
NN4 9UE , Hunsbury Hill
England, United Kingdom
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Hunsbury Hill
Hunsbury Hill

Hunsbury Hill is an Iron Age hill fort two miles (3 km) south-west of the centre of the town of Northampton in the county of Northamptonshire.It is probable that defences were built at Hunsbury Hill between the 7th and 4th centuries BC. The deep ditch excavated has survived to the present day. A wooden rampart was also constructed; there is evidence that Hunsbury hill fort's inner ramparts were burned down and vitrified; this is rare in England.Ironstone extraction began at the hill fort in about 1883, after an attempt to have the site protected under the Ancient Monuments Act of 1882 failed due to the cost of compensating the landowner. Many of the fort's internal features were destroyed, but the work revealed up to 300 pits which, according to the curator of Northampton Museum in 1887, contained "numerous artefacts that now comprise one of the finest collections... of Prehistoric antiquities in England". The finds included iron weapons and tools, bronze brooches, pottery, glass and around 159 quern-stones. All were given to the town's museum.Hunsbury Hill fort is a designated Scheduled Ancient Monument. Parts of the fort's banks have been badly eroded because of the 19th century quarrying, the effects of burrowing European rabbits and damage from tree roots. It is now managed as a park by West Northamptonshire Council. Part of the route of the railway built for the quarrying remains and beginning in 1975 has been modified for use by the Northamptonshire Ironstone Railway Trust who added a new line. The track is used and maintained by the Trust. As the use of the quarries finished by 1920 the original 1,000 mm (3 ft 3+3⁄8 in) gauge track was not used. The Trust laid a mixture of standard gauge, 1,000 mm (3 ft 3+3⁄8 in) gauge and 2 ft (610 mm) track but from 1982 only standard gauge track has been used. The area around the hill is the large Northampton housing estate called West Hunsbury.

Wootton Brook

Wootton Brook is a tributary of the River Nene which runs through Northamptonshire, England.The brook has two sources, one rises at Salcey Lawn in the middle of Salcey Forest and flows northerly, the other rises at Yardley Chase and flows in a southerly direction, both converging in a marshy field southeast of Horton. It then takes a westerly direction, passing under the B526 (Northampton – Newport Pagnell road, once the A50 trunk road), and takes a meandering course between Hackleton on its north bank and Piddington on its south bank, continuing through Preston Deanery. It runs on between Wootton (northbank) – the village that gives it its name – and Grange Park (southbank) passing under the Quinton Road and continuing on to pass under the A45, into Blackymoor. Here it is used to provide man-made lakes for Collingtree golf course and balancing lakes to take the runoff from East Hunsbury. It then passes under the Northampton – Euston railway line and the old Northampton – Towcester Road (long since bypassed by the A43 dual carriageway), at Ladybridge Park, which takes its name from the 19th-century name of the brook, Lady Brook, with the Counties Crematorium on its south bank. Passing now to the south of West Hunsbury, into Rothersthorpe Vale, through Ladybridge Park, another lake has been created at Shelfleys, the south bank of which is the old course of the brook, passing over a weir as it continues on its course to pass under the A4123 (M1 – M40 link road). It then passes under the Northampton Arm of the Grand Union Canal, which is carried over it by an aqueduct. Turning now in a northerly direction it passes under a humpback bridge on the Northampton – Rothersthorpe Road, once the old drovers track known as the Banbury Lane. It then passes through Swan Valley and Pineham where there are further man-made balancing lakes for the industrial estates here. Turning easterly sweeping around the western end of Hunsbury Hill it enters the River Nene at Upton Mill. From source at Horton to the Nene, the brook runs approximately 15 kilometres (9.3 mi).