Cogenhoe

Cogenhoe
Northamptonshire
St Peters Church Hall
Location
Grid reference:	SP831607
Location:	52°14’13"N, 0°47’35"W
Data
Population:	1,436  (2011)
Post town:	Northampton
Postcode:	NN7
Dialling code:	01604
Local Government
Council:	West Northamptonshire
Parliamentary constituency:	South Northamptonshire

Cogenhoe is a village in Northamptonshire, some five miles east of the county town, Northampton. The village stands on high ground overlooking the Nene Valley, and from its lofty spot it has grown into a large village with varied amenities including football, cricket and bowls clubs.

This village shares a parish with Whiston and the two together had a recorded population in 2011 of 1,436.

Cogeenhoe is a well-provided small village, with a pub (the Royal Oak), a village shop, Cogenhoe and Whiston Village Hall and Playing Fields, the Church Rooms, the Cogenhoe Sports and Social Club and a primary school (Cogenhoe Primary School).

History

In prehistory, the Nene valley was a system of braided channels with Neolithic and later, Bronze Age folk living in around the area. The main evidence from these periods is the many flint tools which have been found including arrow heads, scrapers, boring tools and an axe-head. On the hill was a barrow cemetery of at least six large mounds, of which only one has survived the plough and is now a Scheduled Ancient Monument. It can be seen from the footpath to Earls Barton.

A later settlement took root on the south side of Cogenhoe Firs and developed into an important Romano-British settlement which lasted for several hundred years. Apart from a villa with mosaic floors, there were many other buildings with a variety of uses. Another Romano-British villa was built on the southern rim of the valley and east of Whiston.

The Domesday Book records a mano here, believed to have been centred on the present Cotton Farm where a number of houses were shown on the later Cogenhoe map of 1630.

Until the 19th century, this was a woollen and textiles area, but from the mid 19th century until shortly after the Second World War, Cogenhoe became a boot and shoe village, with the Mann family first working from a converted cottage in Church Street, then to a purpose-built factory in Whiston Road. When that burnt down in 1909, a replacement factory was built in Short Lane which was used until the late 1940s, when production ceased and it became a bus garage. That too was destroyed by fire in the early 1970s.

One of the most important factors in encouraging industrial growth in the area was the opening of the Blisworth to Peterborough Railway in 1845, which opened stations at Billing Road, west of Cogenhoe, and Castle Ashby to the east of Whiston. Many local men worked on the line as plate-layers, signalmen and porters, and the busy goods yard at Billing dispatched agricultural produce and boots and shoes out to the larger centres and accepted coal, fertiliser and many other goods for local customers.

Digging for iron ore began at Cogenhoe in the late 1850s with opencast quarrying and mines. A cable-worked narrow gauge line took the ore down to a tipping dock on the standard gauge branch. The standard gauge line was originally operated by gravity and horses, the loaded wagons coasting down the gradient from the western end of the line to just south of the road near Roe Farm, unitl steam locomotives were introduced in 1880. A brickworks operated to the west of Roe Farm. However, the economic depression of the late 1880s saw the end of both iron ore extraction and brick-making at Cogenhoe.

In the 1960s, Midland Capacitors established themselves in Church Street, making components for black and white televisions. For some time, every television in the country had parts made at Cogenhoe. The company lasted for some years and, like the boot and shoe factories before it, also provided a lot of out-work for local people.

Cogenhoe is now largely a commuter village, with most people working in Northampton or further afield due to its road links with the A45 and M1 motorway.

St Peter's Church

From at least the reign of Henry II when William de Cogenhoe erected a small church, and probably much earlier, a place of worship has stood on this spot in Church Street in the old part of the village.

Between 1225 and 1280 Nicholas de Cogenhoe, believed to be a Crusader, built a new church, and his effigy rests today in the south aisle of St. Peter's. The son of Nicholas, William de Cogenhoe, opened up an arch on the north side of the chancel in AD 1320 and built a chantry chapel. His son, Giles de Cogenhoe, widened the nave and added the north and south aisles and a Founders' Chapel in the south aisle.

Within the belfry hang six bells ranging from 3 cwts 3 qtrs to 8 cwts 3 qtrs (187 kg to 437 kg). Two were originally cast in 1678, while another was of unknown 14th-century origin. These three were recast and rehung with the additions in 1909. The bells were further turned and re-hung in 2003 by John Taylor & Co of Loughborough, who operate the largest bell foundry in the world.

Sport

• Bowls : Cogenhoe Bowls Club
• Cricket: Cogenhoe Cricket Club
• Football: Cogenhoe United Football Club

Society

• 1st Cogenhoe Sea Scout Group
• Cogenhoe and Whiston Heritage Society
• Ladies Fellowship
• Mature Movers - fitness classes
• Walking for Health Group

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Cogenhoe)

• Cogenhoe United Football Club
• Cogenhoe Cricket Club
• St Peters Church
• Cogenhoe and Whiston Parish Council
• Cogenhoe and Whiston Heritage Society
• Cogenhoe and Whiston Village Hall
• Cogenhoe Primary School