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January 1998
More than five hundred people visited the Christmas Tree Festival at Rushden Park Road Baptist Church which raised about £1,000 for the Spurgeons Child Care charity.
Former businessman and keen swimmer, Geoff Morgan died, aged 87. He was the last surviving founder of Rushden Swimming Club.
It was announced that the Rector at St.Mary’s, Rushden, Rev. Alan Smith, would be succeeded by the Rev. Barry Morrison of St.Luke’s Church, West Hampstead, London.
Renaissance Footwear Ltd in Oak Street, Rushden, announced its closure plan.
Thieves stole the five foot long steel bull wheel assembly, worth £4,800, from one of the ski drag lifts at the Skew Bridge Ski School off the A45 at Rushden.
Plans were announced to install more closed circuit cameras in High Street, Rushden, and which would be paid for out of the insurance paid out on the former bandstand in Hall Park.
February 1998
Mercedes Wheatcroft celebrated her 90th birthday. She was still working after 52 years in the shop she and her late husband opened in Church Street, Rushden.
Headteachers in Rushden appealed for a re‑think over plans to build a primary school off Newton Road as the only schools over their admission limit were South End Juniors and Infants, due to the fact that families were moving into the new houses next to the A6.
The Rilton Hotel was bought by Draftway Ltd. It was to be expanded and refurbished so that discos and dinner-dances could be held ‘to give Rushden a real meeting place’.
March 1998
A £800,000 purpose-built doctors’ surgery was opened in the grounds of Rushden Hospital.
Rushden Hall Pensioners’ Parliament celebrated fifty years of meetings, discussions and social activities.
Rushden Renovate scheme provided 20 unemployed young people with on‑site training, converting a former boot and shoe factory into fourteen one-bedroomed flats at Horrell Court in Fitzwilliam Street.
Ideas in a scheme to transform Rushden’s Parks for the new Millennium included a hot air balloon service operating from Manor Park and a skating facility at Spencer Park.
A grant of £2,000 was made to help provide hanging baskets for Rushden High Street during the summer.
April 1998
At a public meeting in Rushden a steering committee was formed to campaign for the return of a Town Council.
A new exhibition at Rushden Heritage Centre put the spotlight on the history of the local boot and shoe industry.
Rushden Historical Transport Society took delivery of a steam engine, “The Rushden Gusher”, from the Mid-Norfolk Railway.
May 1998
A motorcycle renovation and training scheme for young enthusiasts aged 14 and 15 working on damaged stolen bikes was launched at Rushden Police Station.
Builders moved into the “Pits”, a site between Oakham Close, St.Margaret’s Avenue and Hall Avenue in Rushden to prepare the land for an estate of forty houses.
June 1998
Residents expressed concern about drivers using Rectory Road in Rushden as a racetrack.
The Rushden Historical Transport Society ran the first steam engine seen on the Rushden to Higham Ferrers railway line for 30 years. Crowds gathered to see the “Rushden Gusher” on 100 yards of track.
It was announced that up to eighty jobs were to be lost at long-established DB Shoes, in Rectory Road, Rushden.
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July 1998
The Rushden Citizens’ Advice Bureau had the royal stamp of approval when the Patron, the Princess Royal, paid a visit.
Plans were approved for 266 new houses to be built between Bedford Road and Greenacre Drive.
One of Rushden’s oldest High Street shops, Horsley’s the seed and corn merchants and pet shop, closed at the end of the month.
Steps were being taken to tackle the problem of vandalism in Rushden’s Hall Park. Windows had been smashed, the plinth to the bandstand damaged, and the toilets had been so severely damaged that they had been closed.
As part of a development plan near Crown Park, off Northampton Road, plans to build a complex of shops selling discount goods direct from factories were approved.
August 1998
The Transport Minister, John Reid, announced that Rushden and Higham Ferrers would get £10 million for the long-awaited A6 by‑pass.
Following the success of the Rushden Renovate programme whereby twenty youngsters were provided with on-site training, a start was made on a further Touchstone Housing Association development in the three-storey, former factory of C.K.Wood in North Street.
The newly formed Bike and Board Association was being run by youngsters with an interest in BMX biking, skate-boarding and inline skating, at Rushden Youth Centre in Moor Road.
A £25,000 spy camera network was installed at Rushden Hall Park in the fight against vandals.
September 1998
Pupils at South End Infant School celebrated the 25th anniversary of the move to the new building in Wymington Road, Rushden.
Battle plans were being drawn up by local residents to stop the building of a new supermarket on the former Calor Gas site in Higham Road. The land had become a haven for wildlife.
Rushden Amateur Operatic Society staged the musical “Follies” at the Castle Theatre, Wellingborough.
It was expected that a derelict town centre factory site, where a young girl fell through a glass roof, would soon be demolished. The former Totectors side in Duck Street, Rushden, had been empty for several years after the firm relocated to a new building on the town’s Crown Park Estate.
October 1998
Despite a 200-name petition against it, a scheme to build about sixty houses and a supermarket on the former Calor Gas site was granted outline planning permission.
Visitors from the Loreley region in Germany helped to celebrate the Silver Jubilee of East Northants District Council.
A special logo was commissioned by the Rushden Town Centre Group.
The County Council Environment Committee agreed to support plans by the Rushden Historical Transport Society to run trains between Rushden town centre and Crown Park as a heritage line.
The former Totectors site in Duck Street and Carnegie Street was razed to the ground to make was for homes for the frail elderly.
The Duke of Gloucester unveiled a plaque to open the latest flats built through the Rushden Renovate scheme in Wood’s Court at Aspen Close, Rushden. The former shoe factory of C.K.Wood in North Street, derelict since 1985, had been transformed into eight flats, and six unemployed young people were trained in the building trade as they worked on the renovation.
A £300,000 appeal was launched by Rushden Historical Transport Society to replace the railway bridge which was dismantled in 1973. The building of a bridge would open up options to extend the railway line towards Rushden Crown Park estate and Wellingborough.
November 1998
Leaflets were delivered to households in the campaign for Rushden’s Town Council. Rushden was the only town in the county without its own council.
More than 8,000 people packed into Hall Park, Rushden, to see £7,000 worth of fireworks light up the sky at the annual event organised by the Rushden and District Scout Group.
Serve won the award for innovation at the Northamptonshire Excellence in Business Awards for meeting the needs of local elderly and disabled people.
December 1998
A copy of the Evening Telegraph and a cyber pet were just two of the mementoes of 1998 to be buried in a time capsule at Rushden St.Mary’s Church by member of Rushden & District History Society. An automatic winding system had been installed at the church for the clock and a hole created by the removal of the weights for the old manual system was used for the time canister. More than sixty items were packed into the capsule which measured 20 inches long and 14 inches in diameter.
Plans for a primary school in Barrington Road, Rushden, to cope with children from 1,000 new homes, were ditched. Education chiefs decided to extend South End Infant and Junior Schools to take an extra 210 pupils.
A power failure in Rushden High Street just a few days before Christmas left shoppers in chaos. About thirty businesses were affected, and while some shops only had lights out, others had tills out of action.
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