Daventry ( , ) is a market town and civil parish in West Northamptonshire, England, close to Northamptonshire's border with Warwickshire. At the 2021 Census, Daventry had a population of 28,123, making it the sixth-largest town in Northamptonshire.
Geography
The town is located north-north-west of London via the M1 motorway, west of Northampton, south-east of RugbyOrdnance Survey Explorer Map, Rugby & Daventry 222, and north-north-east of Banbury.
Other nearby places include Southam, Coventry and the villages of Ashby St Ledgers, Badby, Barby, Braunston, Byfield, Charwelton, Dodford, Dunchurch, Everdon, Fawsley, Hellidon, Kilsby, Long Buckby, Newnham, Norton, Staverton, Welton, Weedon and Woodford Halse. The town is twinned with Westerburg, Germany.
The town lies at around above sea level. To the north and west, the land is generally lower than the town. Daventry sits on the watershed of the River Leam which flows to Leamington Spa, Warwick and the west of England and the River Nene which flows east. There is no river in the town; the largest gatherings of water are two reservoirs made to supply the canal that swings from Watford Gap into the West Midlands through the Braunston Tunnel around the north of the town. To the north-west is Drayton Reservoir and to the north-east is the Daventry Reservoir and country park.
Watford Gap is about north-east of the town; through this gap pass the A5 (Watling Street Roman road), the Grand Union Canal, West Coast Main Line, the Northampton Loop Line and most recently the M1 motorway.
Daventry has several housing estates, which include Drayton, Middlemore Farm, Lang Farm, Ashby Fields, Royal Oak, Timken, Stefen Hill, The Grange, The Southbrook, The Headlands and most recently Monksmoor Park and Malabar.
Characteristics
The small historic core of Daventry, centred on High Street, Market Place, New Street, Sheaf Street and their surrounding streets is a conservation area, with most of its buildings dating from the 17th to 19th centuries including many listed buildings. Until the 1950s, Daventry was a small market town with a population of around 4,000. All of the subsequent growth of the town has occurred during the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Consequently, the historic core of the town is surrounded by modern roads, housing, and industrial estates.
There are two country parks on the edge of the town; just north-east of the town centre is the Daventry Country Park, based around a canal reservoir, just east of the A425. On the south-eastern edge of the town is the Borough Hill country park.
There are 74 buildings or groups of buildings in the centre of Daventry that are on the List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest led by the Church of Holy Cross at grade I. Grade II*buildings include the Saracen's Head (now Wetherspoons), the Moot Hall (see below), the Wheatsheaf (now a residential home), 27, 29, 36, 57, 59 High Street and 2, 20, and 22 Sheaf Street. Grade II listed buildings include several in Market Place, Church Walk, New Street, High Street, Sheaf Street and the United Reformed Church, the Burton Memorial (commemorating Edmund Charles Burton, Town Clerk of Daventry; see photo at left), Danetre Hospital Offices (former workhouse) and Middlemore Farmhouse (now a pub), also in Drayton – School Street and Orchard Street.
A street market is held every Tuesday and Friday in High Street, although its original site was on the aptly named Market Square. There is a modern shopping precinct adjacent to the High Street called Bowen Square.
An alternative pronunciation for Daventry used by locals is 'Daintree', but this has become less common.
History Early history and toponymy Daventry is overlooked by the Borough Hill on the eastern edge of the town. The hill has been the site of human activity dating back into prehistory: remains have been found of two Bronze Age barrows, two Iron Age hill forts – one of which is the fourth largest found in Britain, and a later Roman villa and farming settlement.
According to local folklore Daventry had Danish (Viking) origins, this was partly due to the old pronunciation of Daventry as Daintry, which was interpreted as "Dane Tree", however in more modern interpretation the town's name is thought likelier to be Anglo-Saxon in origin: "Dafa's tree" (Dafa being a founding father or paterfamila) and there was very likely a meeting tree, possibly on Borough Hill. Thus the name may have been formed on lines similar to Coventry ("Cofa's tree", i.e. "tree of Cofa"). Another theory which was popular in the 19th century, was that of Thomas Pennant, the Welsh naturalist and antiquarian, who acknowledged the town's 'considerable antiquity' and speculated that the name was Brythonic, dwy-avon-tre (town of two rivers), a derivation seemingly supported by the town's topography, situated as it is between the sources of the River Leam, which flows west, and the River Nene which flows east.Datchworth – Dean, West |A Topographical Dictionary of England (pp. 15–23) . British-history.ac.uk (2003-06-22). Retrieved on 2013-07-17 This theory however is now discredited.
Medieval and Tudor Daventry was mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Daventrei. It was recorded as belonging to Countess Judith, niece of William the Conqueror.
In around 1108, Daventry Priory a small Cluniac priory was founded at Daventry, alongside the parish church. The priory was closed in 1526 by Cardinal Wolsey who granted its assets to Christ Church, Oxford.
In 1203 a market was first recorded at Daventry. The market benefited from Daventry's location upon the main road (now the A45 road) linking the important city of Coventry with Watling Street (now the A5 road) which was the main route from the Midlands to London, which brought in much passing trade.
In 1576 Daventry grammar school was founded by William Parker, a woollen draper and native of the town. The original schoolhouse on New Street, dating from around 1600 still stands, although it is now a private house. That same year Queen Elizabeth I granted Daventry borough status.
The town was mentioned by William Shakespeare in Henry IV, Part I (Act IV, Sc II), which refers to "the red-nosed innkeeper of Daventry". Shakespeare would have known Daventry due to its relatively close proximity to Stratford-upon-Avon, and its position on the main route from the Midlands to London.
English Civil War During the English Civil War, the army of King Charles I stayed at Daventry in 1645 after storming the Parliamentary garrison at Leicester and on its way to relieve the siege of Oxford. The King stayed at the Wheatsheaf Inn, whilst his Royalist army camped on Borough Hill.
According to local legend, it was during his stay at the Wheatsheaf Inn in Daventry that Charles was twice visited by the ghost of his former adviser and friend, Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, who advised him to keep heading north and warned him that he would not win through force of arms.
However, Parliament's newly formed New Model Army, led by Sir Thomas Fairfax, was marching north from besieging Oxford after being instructed to engage the king's main army. Fairfax's leading detachments of horse clashed with Royalist outposts near Daventry on 12 June, alerting the king to the presence of the Parliamentary army. The Royalists made for their reinforcements at Newark-on-Trent but after reaching Market Harborough turned to fight, which resulted in the decisive Battle of Naseby, in which the Royalist army was heavily defeated by the Parliamentarians. The village of Naseby is approximately northeast of Daventry.
Dissenters English Dissenters founded a Dissenting chapel in the town around 1722 in buildings opposite The Wheatsheaf on the southern end of Sheaf Street. Later in 1752 a Dissenting Academy was moved from Northampton to this site. The chemist and theologian Joseph Priestley studied there from 1752 to 1755. In 1789, the Academy moved back to Northampton.
Coaching town
Daniel Defoe described Daventry as a "considerable market town which subsists chiefly on the great concourse of travellers on the old Watling Street way."
During the Georgian era of the 18th and early 19th century, a national system of turnpike roads with improved road surfaces developed, this in turn allowed the development of a national system of mail coaches and long distance passenger stagecoaches. Daventry, being located on the main roads linking London with the West Midlands, Holyhead and Lancashire, flourished as a coaching town. There were many coaching inns in the town including the Wheatsheaf, the Saracen's Head, the Plough and Bell, the Dun Cow, and the Brown Bear.
At the zenith of the coaching era in the 1830s, Daventry had become a major hub of the national network, with more than 250 coaches passing through the town every week, including services between London, Warwick, Birmingham, Liverpool and Holyhead, and Birmingham and Cambridge.
Reflecting Daventry's prosperity, many of the town's finest building were constructed during this period, including, most notably, the Holy Cross Church of 1758.
Stagnation and decline 1838–1955
The Industrial Revolution largely passed Daventry by, owing to its failure to become linked to the newer transport networks: The Grand Junction Canal (now Grand Union) had opened in 1796, and passed a few miles north of Daventry. An arm from the canal to Daventry was proposed, and was included in the Act of Parliament authorising it, however this was never built.
The opening of the London and Birmingham Railway in 1838 signalled the beginning of the railway age; almost immediately the coaching trade slumped and Daventry entered a long period of stagnation and decline which lasted for over a century: In 1841 Daventry had a population of 4,565, from thereon it went into steady decline until 1911, when it bottomed out at 3,516, and then slowly recovered, reaching 4,077 in 1951, but did not recover to the 1841 level until later in the 1950s.
The London and Birmingham Railway passed a few miles to the east of the town through the Watford Gap. A branch line to Daventry was included in the original Act of Parliament, however, despite several earlier attempts, the line was not built until 1888, when a short branch was built from Weedon to Daventry railway station. In 1895 the line was extended to Leamington Spa. However being only a branch line this did little to revive the town's economy. The only significant industry to develop in the town during this time was shoemaking, which at its height in the 1870s employed around 700 workers.
Broadcasting station
In 1925, the newly created BBC constructed a radio transmitting station on Borough Hill just outside the town. Daventry was chosen because it was the point of maximum contact with the land mass of England and Wales. From 1932 the BBC Empire Service (now the BBC World Service) was broadcast from there. The radio announcement of "Daventry calling" made Daventry well known across the world. It was the BBC's use of the literal pronunciation in this call-sign that resulted in the widespread displacement of the historical pronunciation "Daintree" (). The transmitting station contributed to the town's population revival, as a number of BBC staff and their families moved into the area.
At its height by 1990 the station had 43 radio masts, however the station closed in 1992 and all but one of the radio masts was taken down, with most of the land being sold to Daventry District Council who opened it up to the public as a country park. A commercial unit of the BBC remained based locally for a few years after. A busy directional radio beacon (VOR), identifier "DTY", for aircraft is situated approximately south of the town. The town also gives its name to the busy Daventry air traffic control sector.
Radar experiment