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Daventry ( , ) is a market town and civil parish in the West Northamptonshire unitary authority area of Northamptonshire, England, close to the border with Warwickshire. At the 2021 Census, Daventry had a population of 28,123, making it the sixth-largest town in Northamptonshire.
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 Bec and Woodford Halse. The town is Town twinning 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.
There are two 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 Listed building 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),
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> 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.
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 Pater familias) 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.
In around 1108, Daventry Priory a small Cluniac priory was founded at Daventry, alongside the parish church. The priory was closed in 1526 by Thomas Wolsey who granted its assets to Christ Church, Oxford.
In 1203 a Marketplace 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 Ancient borough.
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.
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.
During the Georgian era of the 18th and early 19th century, a national system of Turnpike trust with improved road surfaces developed, this in turn allowed the development of a national system of and long distance stagecoach. Daventry, being located on the main roads linking London with the West Midlands, Holyhead and Lancashire, flourished as a coaching town. There were many 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.
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.
At its height by 1990 the station had 43 , 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.
Borough Hill was also the site of the Gee Eastern chain master transmitter mast: this was part of a radio navigation system used by the Allies during World War II. Borough Hill Roman villa is also located here.
The town's fortunes were also boosted when the first phase of the M1 motorway was opened nearby, giving the town a direct motorway link with London, with the expansion of the motorway network connecting it to the north of England within a decade.
Despite the growth of the town, Daventry railway station was closed to passengers in 1958, with the line closing to freight in 1963.
The plan got off to a good start, and by 1972 more than 1,000 new families had moved to Daventry, along with many new industries. However by the mid-1970s growth had slowed sharply, due to a combination of the faltering national economy and public spending cuts. The planning agreement had originally been intended to last for 30 years (until 1991) however Birmingham City Council decided to pull out of it half way through in 1976, due in part to spending cuts, but also as it had become clear that the town's plan was falling short of expectations: The target population had been 36,000 by 1981, but actual growth was much slower than this, nevertheless, between 1961 and 1981 the population had nearly tripled from 5,860 to 16,178; Subsequent growth in the following decades has been slower and driven mainly by private developments. The population had reached 22,367 by 2001, and by 2011 it was 25,026.
In 2006, the outdoor pool – which had been built and funded by Daventry residents in the 1950s following the drowning of three children in the local reservoir – was closed due to funding difficulties. In 2007, Daventry began plans to modernise the town with a futuristic personal rapid transit system that would link outer estates to the town centre, and a canal arm with marina next to the former site of the outdoor pool. In May 2018, the District Council dropped the building a canal arm and marina scheme in favour of achievable projects.
In March 2018, the town's High Street was used as a filming location for the feature film, Nativity Rocks!.
From 1974, the area of the former municipal borough of Daventry became an unparished area with charter trustees until 2003, when Daventry became a civil parish and gained its own Town (parish) Council. Daventry Town Council currently has 16 councillors representing four wards. The Mayor of Daventry is elected annually by the members of the town council. The town council has responsibility for a number of functions such as managing the town's market, open spaces, allotments, cemeteries, museum, and CCTV. All other local services are the responsibility of West Northamptonshire Council.
Daventry is represented in Parliament by the Daventry Parliamentary constituency, which is a safe Conservative seat, the MP representing the seat since 2024 has been Stuart Andrew.
The proximity of motorways and mainline railways has led to the development of an increasingly large logistics facility, north of Daventry. This warehouse and distribution centre is known as the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal (DIRFT). It is situated between Rugby and Crick and the A5 and junction 18 of the M1 motorway (its original northern terminus in 1959 until 1964). Stagecoach Midlands provides regular bus services D1 and D2 from Daventry and Rugby. The terminal is served by a direct connection to the Northampton Loop of the West Coast Main Line railway.
Due to the proximity to the M1, Ford opened a large national spare parts distribution warehouse on the Royal Oak Industrial Estate in 1972. The building took Taylor Woodrow a year to build at a cost of £2.25M and was for many years considered the largest building in the United Kingdom. A new national distribution centre was opened in 2004, run by DHL, for J D Wetherspoon on the Drayton Fields Industrial Estate, north west of the town.
In 2011 a landmark building was opened in Eastern Way – the iCon. It provides conferencing and 55 supported units for businesses involved in low carbon construction and environmental technologies. It also includes a café, exhibition space and an auditorium for 300 people. Funding for the project came from the European Regional Development Fund, the East Midlands Development Agency and the West Northamptonshire Development Corporation. Daventry District Council and Northamptonshire County Council have donated the land for the project. It is now operated by the University of Northampton.
The A45 runs around Daventry; eastbound it connects it with the A5 and the M1 at junction 16, and then Northampton. To the north-west it connects to Rugby, Coventry, and Birmingham.
The A425 connects Daventry with Southam, Leamington Spa and Warwick to the west.
The A361 connects Daventry to the A5 at Kilsby to the north, which then gives access to junction 18 of the M1. To the south-west the A361 connects Daventry with junction 11 of the M40 and then Banbury.
These roads all converge on the town's outer ringroad.
In addition to this the former Braunston and Willoughby railway station on the Great Central Main Line which ran to the west of Daventry, was originally called Willoughby for Daventry when it opened in 1899, despite the station being around five miles north-west of Daventry in neighbouring Warwickshire. It was later renamed Braunston and Willoughby for Daventry in 1904, before the reference to Daventry was finally dropped in 1938. The station itself closed in 1957, and the line in 1966.Butt, R.V.J. (1995). The Directory of Railway Stations. Yeovil: Patrick Stephens Ltd. . R508.
Today, Daventry has two : The Parker E-ACT Academy to the north of the town and Danetre and Southbrook Learning Village to the east, near the BBC transmitter, both with thriving sixth-forms and the Daventry campus of Northampton College. In September 2013 Daventry University Technical College opened. It was part of the university technical college programme, and offered 14–19-year-old students technical as well as academic courses of education. After failing to attract enough pupils the college closed at the end of the 2016–17 school year, lasting only four years.
Primary education facilities include St James' Junior School, Falconer's Hill Academy, Abbey Church of England Academy, Ashby Fields Primary School – which is a Values education, The Grange School and the primary part of the Danetre and Southbrook Learning Village. Monksmoor Park CE Primary School opened in September 2018. Many children from Daventry are enrolled with the surrounding village schools, such as Byfield, Badby, Newnham, Woodford Halse, Barby and Welton.
| White: White British | – | – | 20,738 | 95.4% | 22,476 | 89.8% |
| White: White Irish | – | – | 209 | 1% | 185 | |
| White: Gypsy / Traveller / Irish Traveller | – | – | – | – | 14 | |
| White: Other White | – | – | 250 | 1.2% | 1,201 | |
| Asian / Asian British: British Indians | 88 | 136 | 279 | |||
| Asian / Asian British: Pakistani | 35 | 36 | 85 | |||
| Asian / Asian British: Bangladeshi | 0 | 0 | 14 | |||
| Asian / Asian British: British Chinese | 64 | 78 | 80 | |||
| Asian / Asian British: Other Asian | 31 | 27 | 111 | |||
| Black / Black British: Caribbean | 38 | 48 | 48 | |||
| Black / Black British: African British | 7 | 22 | 116 | |||
| Black / Black British: Other Black | 21 | 7 | 19 | |||
| Other: Arab | – | – | – | – | 3 | - |
| Other: Any other ethnic group | – | – | – | – | 26 | 0.1% |
| EU-14 | – | – | – | – | – | – | 424 | 1.5% |
| EU-8 (A8) | – | – | – | – | – | – | 1300 | 4.6% |
| All other EU countries | – | – | – | – | – | – | 748 | 2.7% |
| Christians | 15,717 | 72.3% | 14,977 | 59.8% |
| Buddhism | 54 | 107 | ||
| Hinduism | 71 | 136 | ||
| Jews | 13 | 20 | ||
| Muslim | 74 | 0.3% | 192 | 0.8% |
| Sikhism | 47 | 91 | ||
| Other religion | 50 | 61 | ||
| Irreligion | 4,167 | 19.2% | 7,846 | 31.4% |
| Religion not stated | 1,538 | 1,596 | ||
The town's Stefen Hill Sports Ground is home to Daventry Amateur Athletic Club and Daventry Rugby Club.
The town has two main public parks, Daventry Country Park, which features a large children's play area, fitness equipment, a range of marked walks, nature trail, and cafe, and Daventry reservoir. The smaller Daneholme park is quite close by and is bounded by the old railway cuttings, Daneholme Avenue, Ashby Road and Welton Road.
There is a leisure centre in the town centre which is well attended. It features swimming pool area, gym and a number of multi-sport areas. A children's soft play area and cafe provide non-sports-based facilities.
Golfers can enjoy the course at Daventry and District Golf Club, which is effectively on the side of Borough Hill, or head slightly out of town to Staverton Park Golf Club.
2013 saw the opening of a purpose-built skate park on New Street Recreation Ground, this was constructed in consultation with local youth groups and features challenges for boarders of all abilities.
On 7 June 2017 a major cycling event took place in the town when Daventry hosted the Grand Depart of The Women's Tour. The first stage started on the High Street and completed a lap of the town before heading off to finish in Kettering. On 14 June 2018 The Women's Tour stage two began in Rushden and finished in the High Street in Daventry.
GB3, GB4 and British F4 team Fortec Motorsport are based in the town. Fortec previously raced in the British GT Championship, Blancpain Endurance Series and Blancpain Sprint Series.
Daventry’s local radio stations are BBC Radio Northampton on 104.2 FM, Heart East on 96.6 FM, Inspiration FM on 107.8 FM and Connect Radio on 107.4 FM. BBC CWR can also be received in the town through DAB.
The local weekly newspaper serving the town is the Daventry Express.
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