To wonder what Northampton has got going for it?

[Bluebellsinseason]

Anything? Apart from some nice villages?

There are plenty of places worse than Northampton. Actually Corby is not all that bad, it doesn't deserve its reputation anymore. If you want a really crap town, drive a bit further along the A14 until you get to Huntingdon! I grew up there and it seriously has very little going for it apart from proximity to Cambridge.

stoatie and midnight I was at university college northampton and did the welly road pub crawl. Feel all nostalgic now.

We have quite a lovely time here, visiting for example Rockingham Castle, Fermyn Woods, West Lodge Farm, Stanwick Lakes, East Carlton Park, Fineshade Woods, Barnwell County Park, Foxton Locks, Nene Valley Railway, the new Corby International Swimming Pool.

There are lots of nice walks in lovely countryside, I was talking to an old man who regularly goes out and finds old coins and fossils around the woodlands here.

I'm quite happy to raise my children here in Corby. The county is quite beautiful.

Hasn't anyone mentioned 78 Derngate? It's a Charles Rennie Mackintosh house, now a museum. It's amazing, and has a nice little cafe to boot. That is pretty much the highlight of Northampton for me, though...

Apart from the towns, Northamptonshire is one of my favourite counties though. As beautiful as the Cotswolds without all the touristy gumph.

I always understood it was NENN as far as Peterborough where it became NEEN.

It's true that Corby was always seen as an interloper by locals, growing as it did from a small stone village in the 1930s to a town when Stewarts and Lloyds set up the steelworks and imported thousands of workers from Glasgow (mainly).

But in the last few years Corby has really improved, while Kettering is now a horrible place and I say that as someone who was born there, moved away for many years then came back to north Northants.

Rabbits we may be neighbours...

i might be neighbours with you both Rabbits and Wooly

we should meet at Cafe Con Leche for lunch

I think I am another neighbour ........

Perhaps we should form a Northants protection society

Hahaha, we really should, I didn't realise there were so many Mumsnetters in Corby.

I wonder if any of us send our children to the same school. Bet we've wandered past each other at some point. Small world!

I lived there in Weston Favell for 10 years and hated every minute of it.

hands off our Northants!

(old habits die hard, old steelworking town roots and all that)

I also lived in the YMCA on Castillian Street which wasn't much better.

Wellingborough, now there's a dump. Must leave thread now, getting mardy.

We used to live in a lovely village. But the town is pants. DH used to call Northampton - Bedford - Milton Keynes the Chav Triangle.

We used to go swimming there, and the changing rooms would regularly be smeared with shit or have a dirty nappy or jobbie or two on the floor.

Ah Weston Favell- the Bold Dragoon is a hell of a pub....

I'm from Northampton - left at 18 though . . . Mother still lives in lovely village but Northampton itself is a bit dull.

We always used to say its central as its main advantage

I did go to a good school though which is still there . . .

Whoever said that Chicago Rock got a mention as a good restaurant......erm no it didn't.

I just mentioned it. Have never eaten there but had many, many fantastic nights out there. It was 10+ years ago.

As for Cogenhoe - it's pronounced Cuckno isn't it? My family moved there about 25 years ago and left were kicked out about 5 years later I don't remember much about it, other than it being very pretty and on top of a huge hill that we had to walk up, via the aquadrome, when we left my other Aunt's house in....Brackmills?(near the Weston Favell shopping centre)

I also remember a beautiful walk from Cogenhoe to the village nearby that I want to call Brayfield (will Google in a minute)

I was only a nipper, but it is still vivid today. Def has the most beautiful countryside.

Standens Barn - not Brackmills.

And Brafield-on-the-Green.

God bless Google

Aaaah Weston Favell Tesco's with it's ratio of 12 security guards to every customer

My PiLs are in Weston and my FIL once watched two men load a trolly with electrical goods and simply stroll out, they got near to the underground car park, before being apprehended. FiL made a comment "you don't see that every day" and one the security guys said "you obviously don't shop here every day then!".

@ HotPink.

It's not bad though, considering it was one of the first out-of-town shopping centres in it's day. Also, it used to have a big foot bridge that I loved going across (didn't get out much back then ha!)

My cousin lived in a flat in Kingsthorpe (totally outing myself to her if she's here! ) when she was pregnant with DD1. We went to Milton Keynes for the day and returned to find the road cordoned off and a stand-off with armed police and a bloke with a knife holding his wife hostage!!!

As she was so heavily pregnant the police eventually let us back to the flat (nobody else, just us!) and we had to duck down and run (with a copper running with us) into their flat! Was very exciting (well, not for the poor woman with the nut of a husband)

Oh Weston Favell 'The Centre' - that place used to be awful.

I think it still is, has been 3 ish years since I was last there though in fairness.

I must admit I get ranty if I hear Neen instead of Nen We used to shop at the Weston favell tesco and don't remember it being bad...then again I was a kid and it was errr about 34 years ago!

They are weird with the village pronunciation though- ravensthorpe is raanstrop. Though only in the village itself, my family were from Spratton and rolled their eyes at them ;)

Rusty are you still in a locality near N'hampton then?