|
More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
|
Northampton
|
|
(180,000 in 1991) Administrative centre of Northamptonshire, on the river Nene. The Norman castle was demolished in the 17C, but medieval churches survive. The early 12C St Sepulchre's, based on crusaders' reports of the *Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, is one of only four round Norman churches in England; and St Peter's, dating from later in the same century, is a fine example of its period. During the 1940s the vicar of the 19C St Matthews commissioned some outstanding modern art for his church, notably *Moore's Madonna and Child and a Crucifixion by *Sutherland. The Roman Catholic cathedral, opened in 1864, is by one of the sons of *Pugin.
|
|
|
|
Northampton's main industry, the manufacture of shoes, began in the 17C. The town's museum, housed in the former county jail (1846), contains the world's largest collection of boots and shoes from Roman times to the present. The Museum of Leathercraft, opened in 1978, surveys in a similar fashion the story of leather.
|
|
|
|