Rockingham One-Place Study

The picturesque village of Rockingham came into being when William the Conqueror built a castle that controlled an important north/south road and also boasted a commanding view over the Welland Valley. The whole parish, with its village and market clustered around the castle, was acquired in 1544 by a local family, the Watsons, who still own it today. The castle found itself on the front line in the Civil Wars when most of the original village was destroyed leaving only the housing along Main Street.

‘Rockingham: The village under the Castle – A social history of a closed Northamptonshire Village’ focuses on the iconic closed village and its inhabitants as it recovered and evolved from the wars. It draws on the extensive estate documents, mainly from the late seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, in order to paint a picture of the villagers’ finances, employment, homes and social life. In so doing it showcases for the first time the richness of the estate records, which are fully referenced. The book was awarded ‘Highly Commended’ in the Northamptonshire Heritage Forum Best Book awards 2023. It was cited as a good example of how to write a local village history.