Corby

Mesolithic and Neolithic artefacts have been found in the area surrounding Corby and human remains dating to the Bronze Age were found in 1970 at Cowthick.[4] The first evidence of permanent settlement comes from the 8th century when Danish invaders arrived and the settlement became known as "Kori's by" – Kori's settlement. The settlement was recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as "Corbei". Corby's emblem, the raven, derives from an alternative meaning of this word. These Danish roots were recognised in the naming of the most southern of the town's housing estates, Danesholme, around which one of the Danish settlements was located.

Corby was granted the right to hold two annual fairs and a market by Henry III in 1226. In 1568 Corby was granted a charter by Elizabeth I that exempted local landowners from tolls (the fee paid by travellers to use the long-distance public roads), dues (an early form of income tax)[5] and gave all men the right to refuse to serve in the local militia.[6] A popular legend is that the Queen was hunting in Rockingham Forest when she (dependent on the legend) either fell from her horse or became trapped in a bog whilst riding. Upon being rescued by villagers from Corby she granted the charter in gratitude for her rescue. Another popular explanation is that it was granted as a favour to her alleged lover Sir Christopher Hatton.

The Corby Pole Fair is an event that has taken place every 20 years since 1862 in celebration of the charter. The 1942 fair was not held due to the Second World War; it took place five years later. According to a newspaper report dated 14 June 1862 which focuses on the extravagances of the fair, the fugitive slave John Anderson was described as being educated in the Corby British School,[7] giving the town an unusual link to slavery in the United States.

The most recent pole fair was held on Friday, 3 June 2022, to coincide with The Queen's Platinum Jubilee celebrations.[8]

The local area has been worked for iron ore since Roman times. An ironstone industry developed in the 19th century with the coming of the railways and the discovery of extensive ironstone beds. By 1910 an ironstone works had been established. In 1931 Corby was a small village with a population of around 1,500. It grew rapidly into a reasonably sized industrial town, when the owners of the ironstone works, the steel firm Stewarts & Lloyds, decided to build a large integrated ironstone and steel works on the site. The start of construction in 1934 drew workers from all over the country including many workers from the depressed west of Scotland and Irish labourers. The first steel was produced in October 1935 and for decades afterwards the steel works dominated the town. By 1939 the population had grown to around 12,000, at which time Corby was thought to be the largest "village" in the country, but it was at that point that Corby was re-designated an urban district (see the Local Government section below).

During the Second World War the Corby steelworks were expected to be a target for German bombers but in the event there were only a few bombs dropped by solitary planes and there were no casualties. This may be because the whole area was blanketed in huge dense black, low-lying clouds created artificially by the intentional burning of oil and latex to hide the glowing Bessemer converter furnaces at the steelworks from German bomber crews.[9] The only known remaining scars from German attacks can be found in the form of bullet holes visible on the front fascia of the old post office in Corby village (now known as Decades bar and restaurant). The Corby steelworks made a notable contribution to the war effort by manufacturing the steel tubes used in Operation Pluto (Pipe Line Under the Ocean) to supply fuel to Allied forces on the European continent.

In 1950, with a population of 18,000, Corby was designated a New Town with William Holford as its architect. By 1951, he prepared the development plan with a car oriented layout and many areas of open space and woodland. In 1952, Holford produced the town centre plan and in 1954 the layout for the first 500 houses.[10] The town now underwent its second wave of expansion, mainly from Scotland. Corby is famous for its Scottish heritage based on decades of incoming steel workers and was for a time known locally as "Little Scotland".

Sundew dragline excavator was a local landmark

In 1967 the British steel industry was nationalised and the Stewarts & Lloyds steel tube works at Corby became part of British Steel Corporation. The Government approved a ten-year development strategy with expenditure of £3,000 million from 1973 onwards, the objective of which was to convert BSC from a large number of small scale works, using largely obsolete equipment, to a far more compact organisation with highly competitive plant. Steelmaking was to be concentrated in five main areas: South Wales, Sheffield, Scunthorpe, Teesside and Scotland, most of which are coastal sites with access to economic supplies of iron rich imported ores. It was not until 1975 that a closure programme was agreed after a 14-month review by Lord Beswick, the then Minister of State for Industry.[11] Corby was not one of the Beswick Plants that were to close in the review. By this time BSC was plunging into loss and important parts of the investment programme was held back. The European Union, Davignon Plan, had also asked for Steel Capacity in Europe to be significantly reduced.

In May 1979, the New Conservative Governments Minister, Sir Keith Joseph announced the closure of Corby Steelworks. By the end of 1981 over 5,000 jobs had been lost from British Steel in Corby, and further cuts took the total loss to 11,000 jobs, leading to an unemployment rate of over 30%.[12][13] Steel tube making continued, however, initially being supplied with steel by rail from Teesside and later from South Wales.

The title track of Steeltown by Big Country is about the loss of jobs in Corby.[14]

Corby's CCGT power station

Corby was designated as a new town in 1950. Most of the housing in the town has been built since this date. The first new street completed was Bessemer Grove, about the same time that the re-built blast furnace was lit.[15] New industry was subsequently attracted to the town when the Thatcher government designated it as an Enterprise Zone. By 1991 unemployment had returned to the national average.[16] The recovery of Corby was explained in 1990 by John Redwood, then a junior minister in the Department of Trade and Industry, as being a result of the establishment of the Enterprise Zone, the promotion of Corby by the Thatcher government, the work of private investors and the skills of the work force. Others believe the town's recovery was significantly assisted by its central location and substantial grants from the EU.[17][18] The enterprise zone was promoted by the Corby Industrial Development Centre through a prospectus that parodied The Economist, titled The Ecorbyist;[19][20] publication continued at least as late as 1994.[21]

To the north of Corby, on the industrial estates, is a 350MW power station built in 1994; and the Rockingham Motor Speedway built in 2001.

Local news and television programmes is provided by BBC East and ITV Anglia. Television signals are received from the Sandy Heath TV transmitter, BBC East Midlands and ITV Central can also be received from the Waltham TV transmitter.

The town’s local radio stations are BBC Radio Northampton on 103.6 FM, Heart East on 96.6 FM, Smooth East Midlands (formerly Connect FM) on 107.4 FM and Corby Radio on 96.3 FM, a community radio station.

Corby’s local newspaper is the Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph.

The town is located along the A43, A427, A6003 and is 6 miles (9.7 km) from the A14 at Kettering. Corby lies within two hours' drive of four international airports: Birmingham, Luton, Stansted and East Midlands. Being a new town, Corby's road network is different from that of older towns. There are several dual carriageways, most of the principal roads have wide reservations and high speed limits and pedestrian crossings over them are often underpasses. However, Corby is only connected by dual carriageway to one neighbouring town, Kettering (the A6003). All other roads into the town are single carriageways. The three dual carriageways form an outer ring road around most of Corby,[44] however it only encircles suburbs south of the town centre and a small amount of countryside.

Midland Mainline Corby rail-link bus

Corby is served by six bus routes under the Corby Star brand name.[45] Route X4 connects the town with Peterborough, Oundle, Weldon, Danesholme, Kettering, Isham, Wellingborough, Earls Barton, Northampton, It is also operated by Stagecoach Midlands.[46] National Express coaches also provide long-distance connections to the north and Scotland. Plans to build a new bus station in Corby are being considered by the council following the closure of the old bus station in August 2002.

Corby railway station opened on 23 February 2009

Following a number of years when the town had no railway station, a new facility opened on 23 February 2009.[47] East Midlands Railway runs half-hourly services to London St Pancras via Kettering and Wellingborough. The route to London was converted to electric traction in May 2021.[48] There is also a limited peak time service running north to Oakham, Melton Mowbray, East Midlands Parkway and Derby.[49]

Rockingham Motor Speedway

Since the 1980s the unemployment rate has returned to a level closer to the national average (2.7% in October 2005).[50] Employment is biased towards manufacturing (36.8% compared with a regional average of 18.5%) and against public administration, health and education (10.0% compared with the regional average of 25.9%).[51] Much of industry is concentrated in purpose-built industrial estates on the outskirts of the town. Fairline Boats were manufactured here. Weetabix Limited make Weetos in the north of the town. RS Components are based near Rockingham Speedway. Taste Original (formerly Puredrive), part of Zwanenberg Food Group UK has operated from Corby since 1988 making cooked meat snacking products. Amy's Kitchen has recently opened a factory here, and manufactured products for the UK market here.

2018 research by Sky News identified Corby as the town most threatened by job losses in the UK due to automation with 31% of employment subject to cliff-edge automation.[52]

According to the 2001 Census the proportion of the working age population with degree-level qualifications (8.5%) is the lowest of all areas in England and Wales. 39.3% have no GCSE-equivalent qualifications at all.[53] The borough of Corby has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in the East Midlands, outside of the metropolitan boroughs (unitary authorities), although Lincoln is very similar.

According to the 2011 census, Corby had a population of 61,255 and was 85.0% White British, 9.1% Other White (not including White Irish and Irish Traveller), 1.4% mixed race, 1.4% Asian and 1.7% Black.[54] Corby's least White British ward is Oakley Vale where 70.7% of the population are White British while Corby's least ethnically diverse ward is Rural West, where 95.6% of the population are White British.[54] In 2011, 5567 people registered their ethnicity as 'Other White' or 9.1% of the population. This figure includes a large community of people from Poland and the Baltic States.

Brooke Weston Academy

The Corby campus of Tresham Institute of Further and Higher Education provides a range of vocational courses for post-16 students and adult learners. The nearest universities are the University of Northampton, 23 mi (37 km) to the south and both the University of Leicester and De Montfort University in Leicester, 25 mi (40 km) to the west.

Brooke Weston Academy, was one of only fifteen CTCs in England, opened in 1990. Brooke Weston CTC consistently achieved examination results in the top 5% of English state schools, and has been a City Academy since September 2008.[55]

Lodge Park Technology College on Shetland Way

Since 1990 several of Corby's other secondary schools have fared less well with a series of poor examination results and critical inspection reports leading to mergers and closures, the most recent being the closure of Our Lady and Pope John School in 2005. Currently there are five secondary schools in Corby: Brooke Weston Academy, Lodge Park Academy, Corby Business Academy, Kingswood Secondary Academy and the newly opened Corby Technical School which opened to students in an old unused primary school in September 2012 with the new building completed and opened in November 2013. Corby Business Academy has a special unit for children with severe special educational needs. All four schools have sixth forms for post-16 students.

Corby has 17 primary schools, of which two are Church of England schools, three are Roman Catholic and one for children with severe behavioural and emotional difficulties.

Stephen Fry voiced an advertising campaign in London from 2010 to entice people to move to Corby and the surrounding area including Rushden, Kettering and Wellingborough. The North Northamptonshire Development Corporation's[58] campaign uses newspaper and London Underground advertisements, and also local radio with North Northamptonshire, being dubbed 'North Londonshire',[59] as the area is only an hour from London St Pancras by rail. The campaign was criticised by residents in the county proud of the Northamptonshire name.[60][61]

Most of Corby's population live in the town itself, however in terms of area it is mostly rural. This list includes the villages within the borough but also districts of the urban area and modern housing developments. The borough of Corby is made up of 11 wards[26] following a boundary change after the 2011 census.

• Weldon
• Danesholme
• Kingswood
• Rockingham
• Corby Old Village
• Gretton
• Exeter
• Cottingham
• Snatchill
• Middleton
• Town Centre
• Oakley Vale
• Great Oakley
• East Carlton
• Hazelwood
• Rowlett
• Willowbrook
• Stanion
• Little Stanion
• Beanfield
• Lodge Park