Part 2

Today, the town of Rushden stands on the A6 road, half way between the towns of Bedford and Kettering. From which ever way the town is approached, the rows of houses stretched out in the valley are clearly visible, with the church spire looming above the roof tops. Why was this spot chosen for settlement? The River Nene probably played quite an important part here. It was used frequently by the early people as a means of communication and transport, especially from the sea to Northampton and even further inland. The Saxons, coming from the East, made full use of the river to penetrate further inland, and at certain places cleared the thick forest and made settlements. At certain of these settlements, the traders used to rest over night after a journey by river, and so the small unimportant cluster of mud huts gradually grew both in size and importance. It was useless to settle alongside the river as the land was liable to flooding during the winter months and so the people moved up the small valley which joined the main valley of the Nene, onto land flood above level, where the town now stands.

A crossing of the River Nene was made only about a mile away at Ditchford where the width of the valley is narrow. Thus, once the river was crossed there was a reasonably dry route to the slightly higher land. Of course, a good crossing is useless unless it is possible to get down to the river to use it. Rushden itself stands in a small valley that leads down to the river. This gives a well graded route right down to the river itself. The valley would also help to provide a sheltered and in some ways a protected site to the early settlers and it is noticeable that all the old buildings of the town, especially the Manor Farm and the Hall, are situated along this valley. (Even today the old folk of Rushden will always say that 'The only way to get out of the town without going up hill is to follow the brook down to the river.') The early settlers relied upon the small amount of water in the brook for drinking purposes and for use in building their settlements.

The area around the valley was well drained and the chance of flooding was minute. It must have been a considerable asset to all early own corn. Now the presence of reasonable high ground only about a quarter of a mile from the settlement made it possible to set up a windmill at a very early stage in the development of the village. We know that a mill was in existence when the Domesday Survey was undertaken in 1086, (valued at ten shillings) and it is reasonable to assume that this had been built many years before.

The site of Rushden then, provided the early settlers with an excellent sheltered valley, free from flooding, but at the same time, provided them with easy access to the river, which was the chief means for communications.

The solid geology of the parish is divided into six categories. The southern part of the parish comes within the Oxford Clay belt. It is a thick clay formation which forms broad low plateaux and consists of a blue, slate coloured or brownish clay while the lowest portion, near to the Cornbrash belt, is shaly and contains fissile sandy layers almost passing into stone. The next belt is the Cornbrash, with an average of only five feet. It is a red brown rubbly limestone, suitable especially to corn, hence the name. The stone can be used for walling and also road mending. Further north are outcrops of the Great Oolite, Inferior Oolite, Upper Lias and, of course alluvium by the river, but most of these formations have been modified at the surface by drift formation.

The drift geology, however, makes slightly more interesting reading. The first noticeable development is the comparison between this and the physical map. The valley formation of the physical map is brought out distinctively on the drift geology.

The geological materials occurring in the county are extremely complex and though the major relief may be closely correlated with the various rock outcrops, the details of the landscape are largely the result of glacial action. The main effect of ice action has been to erode, or to plaster and so to obscure much of the original or pre-glacial relief with a detritus of very mixed materials.

With comparable reference to the drift geology and land utilisation maps, most of the agricultural land consists of Boulder Clay. This chalky Boulder Clay, as its name implies, contains many chalk pebbles in a clay matrix, and is remarkably uniform and it is only where it is thin enough to show admixtures with the underlying solid geological formations that many varieties of soils are observed. The soils in this chalky boulder clay area of the parish are generally heavy in texture, but with a fairly high proportion of coarse sand and chalk pebbles. In winter the soils are wet and sticky while in Summer they dry very hard. The chief cash crops in this region are wheat and barley while the permanent pastures are of rather poor quality and the dairy cattle are kept only for some of the local needs and the remainder are usually general purpose cattle of poorish quality. Of course, during and after the war, the land had to be put into full production and this is one of the reasons why more fields are not left fallow.

There are three areas of glacial gravel in the parish and all three areas have been used by the local builders for obtaining the necessary sand and gravel for the various building projects in the vicinity. An area of valley gravels has also been utilised for obtaining more sand and gravel and one pit has since been 'emptied' and has now filled with water and used by the local anglers for fishing purposes.

It is noticeable how the area of the valley gravels is comparable with the course of the present brook flowing into the main river.

In the north-west of the parish is an area of Upper Lias Clay. It is a blue clay which gives rise to light brown clay soils which are of great fertility, but though too heavy for general arable cultivation, the necessity for more food during the last war made this area fully utilised. Clay for brick manufacture used to be quarried from this area, but has now ceased and the pit filled with water.

Down in the valley of the small brook occur the Upper Estuarine clays and the Northampton Sands. The former has been exposed by erosion and in places has been modified by the valley gravels. The soils produced from this clay are extremely poor, but as the urban development overshadows this region it has no effect upon the agricultural pattern.

Moving out from the valley is the stretch of the Great Oolites which is again covered mostly by the urban development, while the stretch of Cornbrash to the east of this area falls between the former and the Boulder-clay region.

The area of the Nene pastures (see map of Land Use Regions *missing) is based on the alluvium of the River Nene and stands out quite clearly on the land utilisation map. The whole of the area is composed of pasture land which is not good enough to graze beef cattle on. Consequently it has been used mainly for dairy cattle whose milk helps to provide for the town's increasing demand.

The larger features of the Northamptonshire Physiography were developed before the Pleistocene period, but considerable modifications were brought about by glaciation; the hills are now specifically or relatively less high than they were by the amount of material removed from them by ice, and much of lower ground probably higher than before from the drift deposits left on it being thicker than the rock removed.

The small brook which runs through the town, seems to be a misfit in the reasonably large valley, and it is difficult to conceive that the small stream could have produced the results observed. Therefore it becomes necessary to look for a suitable cause; it was at the end of the first stage of the glacial and the beginning of the Inter-Glacial periods. The rapid melting of the first ice sheet produced floods immense in volume and of great velocity, hence the present day valleys.

Today, the water in the brook comes from a spring running from the southern part of the parish and before it enters the river Nene, it passes through the sewage farm, taking with it much waste water from the sewage works.

The general slope of the land decreases towards the Nene with an average fall of 200 feet over a distance of 3 miles and the general monotonous landscape of the drift covered area is only broken by the valley of the brook which flows through the parish. The main A6 road which forms the high street of the town follows the valley out of the town as it makes its way southwards towards Bedford and London. The other main roads disregard the relief features but as the general slope of the land is gradual, this produces no steep hills.