Settled by successive waves of incomers, Northamptonshire is a typical English shire county with prehistoric camps, Roman towns, Saxon burhs, castles and fortified houses, representing fortification over the centuries, a process punctuated by momentous events including the birth of Richard III and the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, both at Fotheringhay Castle; King John's sieges at Northampton, Rockingham and Fotheringhay; the Battle of Northampton placing Edward IV on the throne; and the decisive defeat of Charles I at Naseby. The great ordnance depot at Weedon was (allegedly) chosen as a bolt-hole for George III in the place furthest from Napoleon's likely invasion. The Victorian period saw the army reorganized and the Volunteer Force develop. Both world wars mobilized the population and the county filled up with army camps, airfields and munitions plants. In the Cold War, nuclear missiles were pointed towards Russia. Many signs of all these events are still visible: Northampton's militia armoury in the guise of a mediaeval castle; the genuine castles of Barnwell and Rockingham: the launch-pads of Harrington's THOR missiles; the Ordnance Stores at Weedon Bec; and the banks and ditches of Hunsbury Camp or Little Houghton. This book illustrates and explains these sites.
Acknowledgements; List of Abbreviations; Introduction; 1
Northamptonshire before the Norman Conquest; 2 Northamptonshire in the Middle
Ages 1066-1500; 3 Tudor, Stuart, and Hanoverian Northamptonshire 1500-1815; 4
Victorian Northamptonshire 1815-1914; 5 The First World War and the Interwar
Years 1914-39; 6 The Second World War and the Cold War 1939-1990; Appendix I:
Pre-Conquest Fortifications; Appendix II: Medieval Castles, Fortified Manor
Houses, and Tudor Strong Houses; Appendix III: Civil War Sites; Appendix IV:
Regular, Militia, and Volunteer Forces, 1860-1918;Appendix V: Barracks and
Army Camps ;Appendix VI: Drill Halls and TA/Army Reserve Centres; Appendix
VII: Military Airfields and Other Aviation-Related Sites; Appendix VIII:
Second World War Anti-Invasion Defences; Appendix IX: Premises Used by the
Northamptonshire Home Guard; Appendix X: Air Defence; Appendix XI: The Secret
War, Intelligence, and Communications; Appendix XII: Military Hospitals and
Welfare; Appendix XIII: Munitions Production; Appendix XIV: Depots; Appendix
XV: POW camps; Bibliography; Index.
Dr Mike Osborne's interest in fortification began with childhood visits to castles It has developed over the years to include all aspects of the topic from Iron-age forts to Cold War bunkers. He was a volunteer co-ordinator for the Defence of Britain Project recording twentieth-century military structures. After a thirty-year career in education he took early retirement to write, producing over twenty books to date. Topics include Civil War sieges and fortifications, drill halls, twentieth-century military structures, a series of county surveys of defences including the award-winning Defending Cambridgeshire, and the best-selling Defending Britain.
