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Article and Photos by Paul Wright, 2024
Steeple View Chase

site
The very start.

April 2021 was one of the driest months on recording according to our local Rushden weather site.

The total precipitation for April was just 11.4 mm, and most of that fell on the night of Tuesday the 27th.

road closed
Farndish Road closure.

The monthly average rainfall for April is normally around 50 mm. So much for the so called April showers locally that year.

But this gave the builders the ideal start with the work at Farndish Road in Irchester, as they made “hay” with the housing development.

digging
 Digging down.

By contrast, the month of May was one of the wettest, and coolest, for many years.

Steeple View Chase, Irchester, by Mulberry Homes, is going to deliver an exciting development of up to 75 homes for our part of Northamptonshire.

coming soon
First on site.
Six months on, and there had been no new activity on site by my next visit in October 2021.

Prior to this site, the company had been going for a decade, from their head office in Rugby, Warwickshire.

The population of Irchester was just short of 6,000 in 2021, and the village has a busy Co-op shop, a fish and chip shop, the Working Men’s Club, (WMC), a chemist, an Indian take away, a Chinese take away, and a couple hairdressing salons.

The village had been without a public house, since the former Red Lion closed as ‘The 19th’ back in 2017.  Last to go was the Carpenter’s Arms, but that got a new lease of life in early autumn 2024.

The Methodist Chapel in the High Street celebrated its 150th year back in 2019. And St Katherine’s Church is on its present site, dates back to the 13th century (although the church was built around 1100). Next door to the Co-op you can join the Reach Out community church.

Sport in Irchester is active, with Irchester bowling club located near to the former Parsons Hall in the High Street. The hall was part of the Edward Parsons Pork Pie company, which was on site until 1965. Their brand name was “Farmhouse”, and sold products around the area.

In fact the land that Steeple View Chase is built on is next to Grange Farm, which is owned by part of the Saxby family, who also made some of the best pork products locally for many years, until their closure.

Now part of the family produce tasty cider at Grange Farm, in Farndish under the Saxby brand. Sadly Mr John Saxby passed away in October, 2020.

The cricket teams play at Alfred Street, and naturally the social club on site is busy.

And football fans can get in to action with Irchester United playing at the same venue. Taking their nick name as the Romans, from the fact that the village had a Roman settlement, about 2000 years ago.

Guests, volunteers, staff and ‘Romans’ assembled to welcome Her Royal Highness, the Princess Royal, to North Northamptonshire’s £15m heritage and tourist attraction Chester House Estate in mid July 2022. Before the unveiling of a plaque and officially opening the site, Princess Anne toured the site meeting with people involved in the day-to-day activities in the archive, shops, cafe and learning centre.

The Chester House centre is at Higham Road (the A45), Little Irchester,Wellingborough NN29 7EZ.

Staying with football, former Liverpool star Phil Neal was born in Irchester in the early 1950s. After starting playing at Wellingborough town (the Doughboys), and then Northampton town (the Cobblers).

Phil Neal was the only player to appear in all four of Liverpools famous European Cup wins of the 1970s and 1980s.

As from 2021 to 2024, Australian born Jon Brady was the manager of the “Cobblers”. He lives in Irchester, and has played for “Rushden & Diamonds”, Kettering Town, and Brackley Town, among many other teams. He resigned his position at the Cobblers in early December, 2024.

So, Irchester is a lively village, with the country park using the old ironstone quarry workings, to entertain many thousands of visitors per year. The extraction of iron ore ended in the late 1960s.

But the site dates back about 1.5 million years. Currently on site there is the Irchester Narrow Gauge Railway Museum, that displays the finest collection of industrial artefacts, and you can enjoy numerous locomotives too.

Talking about the railways, since the building of Corby station, Rushden is now the largest town in Northamptonshire without an operational railway station. Although our railway station did survive being demolished, after the closure in 1969, and is now a fine museum and heritage railway operated by the Rushden Historical Transport Society (RHTS).

The former station serving Irchester closed to passengers in 1960, but the goods side of things carried on until 1965.

During the late summer of 2021, a new railway book was released with rare and previously unseen images of the county.

East Midlands Steam 1950-1966, by Peter Tuffrey, presents the twilight years of steam traction in the area with nearly 200 colour and black-and-white images.

With our former rich industrial heritage locally, a number of the privately owned locomotives appear at work on several sites, such as collieries, quarries and the Irchester Iron Stone quarry is featured.

The builders arrived on site by early 2022, and the weather seemed to have been kind. Naturally the weather was going be hot during the Summer, and a record high was recorded, and Rushden weather station hit 40.2 C on Tuesday 19th July, 2022.

roofing
Roofing.

The very first red alert for extreme heat was issued by the Met office during the same week. And numerous flash fires caused considerable damage up and down the country.

Maybe future new builds may benefit from having air conditioning installed?

There are upgrades available with fixtures and fittings, so perhaps this “Air con” idea may catch on?

During the summer of 2022, a 3 bedroom detached property went on the market at £389,950. This was at plot 2, The Elm, Steeple View. Other properties were available at higher prices.

Early Doors.
Early Doors.

In 2024, anyone driving between Irchester and Wellingborough via Little Irchester, has no doubt seen thousands of solar panels springing up during 2023. The site is providing power for around 7000 local homes.

With the future of a village pub being very delicate in this day and age, we can report that the “Carpenters Arms” re-opened on Saturday 21st September, 2024. Mr Jeremy Williams has taken the pub on a five year lease.



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