Page 10 - Oundle Life March 2021

“Oundle is the most rewarding stone-built town in Northamptonshire.” – so says Sir Nikolaus Pevsner in his ‘Buildings of England: Northamptonshire’ guide. High praise for our little Market Town, but he didn’t stop
there. Pevsner also crowned Oundle
as ‘one of the finest small towns in the country.’ How about that? But why? What makes Oundle that special? Take a moment to think about it, see if you can guess?
Here’s a clue; it’s not what Oundle
has so much as what it has not. Industry. It seems that the industrial revolution all-but passed Oundle by. Sure, the Northampton and Peterborough Railway came in 1845 but the station was located almost 1 mile outside
Oundle on the far side of North Bridge – leaving the town undisturbed. And since the station
lay so far outside the town, an omnibus or post horse, could be hired from outside the Talbot
Hotel to save on shoe leather. Think of it as a Victorian ‘Park & Ride’ scheme; saving the town centre from the filthy engine fumes and noise.
Of course, the railway didn’t last and it was gone a century later, leaving little evidence behind except for the Station Hotel – which lies empty by the A605
roundabout – and the Station Building which has since been converted into a private dwelling. Both buildings were designed by renowned station architect John William Livock in the Jacobean, or Old English Style and built using
One of the finest small towns in the country
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