Yardley Hastings
| Yardley Hastings | |
| Northamptonshire | |
|---|---|
 Yardley Hastings | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | SP865570 |
| Location: | 52°12’14"N, -0°44’2"W |
| Data | |
| Population: | 745 (2011) |
| Post town: | Northampton |
| Postcode: | NN7 |
| Dialling code: | 01604 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | West Northamptonshire |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
South Northamptonshire |
Yardley Hastings is a village in Northamptonshire, to the south-east of the county town, Northampton and is skirted on its south side by the main A428 road to Bedford.
History
Thomas Dudley was born in Yardley Hastings in 1576. He sailed to New England on the Arbella in 1630 and became Governor of the Massachusetts Bay colony. He signed the charter of Harvard College in 1650.
Bouttoll Downing was born in Yardley Hastings in 1510. Ten generations later in 1820 "his descendant Sarah Downing"[1] married John Abbey in Yardley Hastings where further generations continued to live.
The village was struck by a tornado on 23 November 1981, as part of the record-breaking nationwide tornado outbreak on that day.[2] Yardley Hastings is the village in which Marianne Faithfull's character Maggie lives in the 2007 film Irina Palm.
Churches
The parish church, St Andrew's, has a 13th-century west tower and the remains of a Norman wall.[3] It also has exceptional examples of Romanesque detailing.
The former Congregational chapel dates from 1813[3] and subsequently became home to a congregation of the United Reformed Church. Worship here commenced in 1672 when a licence was granted to John Neale of Yardley Hastings permitting him to use his cottage for the purpose of worship and this represents the first recorded instance of nonconformity in Yardley Hastings. In 1813 the chapel was destroyed by fire, but the Manse survived.
The chapel, together with the manse and ancillary buildings, were converted into the National Youth Resource Centre of the United Reformed Church in 1991. The buildings ceased to be used for this purpose in 2003, and are now the "Crossways Retreat and Conference Centre"[4] initiated under the auspices of the East Midlands Synod of the United Reformed Church.
Outside links
 |
("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Yardley Hastings) |
References
- ↑ "Downing family tree" (JPG). http://www.webperspectives.uk/wiki/ggfs.jpg.
- ↑ "European Severe Weather Database". http://www.eswd.eu/cgi-bin/eswd.cgi.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Nikolaus Pevsner: The Buildings of England: Northamptonshire, 1961; 1973 Penguin Books ISBN 978-0-300-09632-3
- ↑ Crossways Retreat and Conference Centre and Yardley Hastings United Reformed Church
