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Kay Collins 2007
Court Estate

One of the sons of the Strickland family, driving pigs along Newton Road in the 1950s.
The Town Sign on the A6 road at Avenue Road Junction
Newton Road in the 1950s

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COURT ESTATE is the top of Bedford Road, the top of Newton Road, Avenue Road & Higham Park. It has close links with Newton Bromswold as the residents went to the village school and church. The name refers to the Manor Court for Rushden which used be held at the Bailiff's Lodge near Avenue Road (previously called Court Avenue) off the A6 road to Bedford. Bencroft Grange is a farmstead at the southern extremity of the town, and it lies alongside Higham Park, an ancient deer park, and is close to the county boundary in Bedford Road, where the tollgate at West Wood once stood.

History & Development Property
Census - see under Rushden Court Estate Sale 1900
Council Plans 1901-1937 Reservoir
Division from Rushden 1948 Strickland's Smallholding
Developments 1950s Phillipson's Directory 1910
Developments Census - 1911
Water Supply Smallholder's Dispute 1918
Sale 1923
Drought 1938 Residents & House Names 1935
Wells run dry 1947 Avenue Cottage
Sales Bencroft Grange Farm
Street Re-numbering 1947-69 Chapman's
Toll Gates Court Stores
Eastfields Farm
Religion Glatton & Thrapstonia
Church Hall 1945
Newton Road Bungalows
Methodist Chapel Re-numbering & names 1951
Methodist - Minutes 1955-1970
Mission Hall
Parishes Divided 1928
'Oakdene' - Mr A Bailey
'Peacehaven'

'Rodney Stoke'
Commerce Rushden Lodge
Advertising Sales
Co-op Mobile Shop Sanders' Farm

Woodbine Villa Sale 1919
Education
Manor Farm Nursery
People
School Obituaries Index
School Bus Residents & House Names 1935
Residents Newton Rd 1951

Bates, Mr Walter
Health & Welfare Brown, Mr C A - obituary
Accidents Chapman - Golden Wedding 1941
Fires Dilley - Golden Wedding 1942
villages - accidents index Groom - Warrington Wedding 1939
Holland, Mr A J
Leisure Knight, Mr - accident 1913
An HE Bates Walk Osborne Family
Concert Party Productions Underwood - Birkbeck Wedding 1939
Concert Party Gallery Warrington - Mills - Watford
Housemartins
Peter Whelan War Time
Women's Instutute First Aid Post

Home Guard
Memories WVS Group - Toys & Vegetables
Whipsnade Visit 1936 Pte. Walter Bates - 1915
Memories - Wartime & the First Aid Post Trp. Carl Bayes
Court Estate in 1943 Lieut. Percy Hawkins

John Warrington
Valuations Pte. Frank Osborne
1910 Court Estate Valuation Roll of Honour 1918
Sergt. George Wm. Bates
Pte. G. F. Nichols

The top of Newton Road, now beyond the new Rushden eastern by-pass road, was a few farms and small holdings but from its junction with Avenue Road there is now a ribbon development of houses and bungalows stretching back towards the town. Most of the properties on the north side of the road were built in the 1930s, with infilling on the south side, followed by dividing of the small holdings.

Avenue Road was just a few small-holdings around 1900 but a large land sale saw plots of around 6 acres sold to other small-holders who kept a few hens, a few sheep, a pig and perhaps a cow and were self-sufficient with fruit and vegetables throughout the two World Wars. Since 1945 these have gradually been divided into smaller plots and new buildings have filled the gaps. In the last 15 years several rather large properties have dwarfed the older buildings and several bungalows have been converted into houses. More recently gardens have been detached to form new plots for new buildings.

In Rushden town itself, the trend has been the opposite, with flats and small town houses being the main new builds in the 1990s but now in 2007/8, to get more on the plots, the trend is to erect three storey properties such as "Church View" off John Clark Way, the link road into town from the by-pass.



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