Desborough, Northamptonshire
Historical Description
Desborough, a village and a parish in Northamptonshire. The village has a station on the M.R., 5½ miles NW of Ket-tering, and a post and money order office under Market Harborough; telegraph office, the railway station. Acreage of parish, 2400; population, 2872. Iron ore is raised, and many of the inhabitants are engaged in the manufacture of boots and shoes. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Peterborough; net yearly value, £97 with residence. The church is old and cruciform. There are Baptist, Congregational, and Wesleyan Methodist chapels.
Administration
The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.
| Ancient County | Northamptonshire | |
| Ecclesiastical parish | Desborough St. Giles | |
| Hundred | Rothwell | |
| Poor Law union | Kettering |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
The parish register dates from the year 1571, but there is a vacancy in the register of baptisms and burials from 1679 to 1686, and of marriages from 1681 to 1695.
Ancestry.co.uk, in association with the Northamptonshire Record Office, have images of the Parish Registers and Bishop's Transcripts for Northamptonshire online.
Churches
Church of England
St Giles (parish church)
The church of St. Giles is a cruciform building of stone, in the Early English and later styles, consisting of chancel, clerestoried nave, aisles, transepts, north porch and a western tower with pinnacles and octagonal spire, containing 6 bells and a clock, placed in 1889 at a cost of £120: there are several ancient monuments to the Poulton family, members of which, for fourteen generations, held the lordship of the manor: the church has been completely restored, partially new roofed, the gallery removed, a lectern, prayer desk and pulpit added, and the interior re-floored and reseated at a cost of about £400: there is a stained window on the south side, and one inserted in 1907 at the west end of the north aisle.
Baptist
Baptist chapel
There is a Baptist chapel, built in 1848, with 400 sittings.
Congregational
Congregational chapel
There is a Congregational chapel, erected in 1912 at a cost of about £3,200, to replace the chapel built in 1855, seating 650 persons.
Methodist
Wesleyan chapel
There is a Wesleyan Methodist chapel.
Civil Registration
For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Desborough from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Desborough (St. Giles))
- Kelly's Directory of Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Northamptonshire, 1914
Land and Property
The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Northamptonshire is available to browse.
Maps
Online maps of Desborough are available from a number of sites:
- Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- Google Streetview.
- National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
- OpenStreetMap.
- old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
- Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)
Newspapers and Periodicals
The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Northamptonshire papers online: