A Northampton Walk: Echoes of St Thomas Becket
This historical walk around Northampton highlights the numerous references in the town to Thomas Becket. It takes about one and a half hours, allowing for brief stops.
Across Northampton you will find many references to Thomas Becket. There is a Becket Ward at the hospital, a park, street name, rotary club and schools are named after him, and the compiler of this walk was in Becket House at his school.
Start the walk in Regents Square, to the north-west of which are Grafton
Street, St Georges Street and St Andrews Road, forming a triangle. This
was St Andrews priory land, containing the main priory and was where Thomas
stayed on his 1163 and 1164 visits. Here too, to the north of the square,
stood the Norman north gate and a short distance away at 1 Primrose Hill,
stands the Victorian Roman Catholic Cathedral, dedicated to St Thomas of
Canterbury and St Mary, containing a relic of the Martyr.
The walk stays close to the Norman town by leaving the square, south along Sheep Street, where you immediately come to the church of the Holy Sepulchre on the left. This is the largest and best-preserved round church in England, built 1100 – 1108. A short time after Becket was canonised, a north aisle was added, stated to be dedicated to him, but when the church fell on hard times this was demolished. The aisle was restored by the Victorians and now contains a chapel dedicated to St Thomas.
Elsewhere
in the chancel is a window of stained glass rescued from St Thomas Hospital
Bridge Street in the 1870s. This church was one of the nine churches built
or rebuilt in Northampton prior to 1130, all of which were dedicated to
the nearby St Andrew's Priory. It is almost certain that Becket would have
visited this church either as archdeacon, with Theobald of Bec, in 1154,
or as chancellor or archbishop later, and he would have known the surrounding
area well.
Leave the church and walk south down Sheep Street which, in medieval times,
was the great north road of its day. Turn left across the top of the Drapery
into the great market square, one of the largest in England. Cross the market
square to exit by the south-east corner. Pass by All Saints Church on your
right. Walk along Wood Hill and turn left into St Giles Square. Cross over
to the south pavement and look back at the town hall. A line of statues
fronts the façade. The one on the extreme left is Thomas Becket.
Now continue into St Giles Street. This is possibly one of the Roman roads linking Irchester to the east with Roman Duston to the west of Northampton. Continue walking east, passing some quality shops and stop at St Giles Church. This is another of the original nine Northampton churches. Just opposite the entrance to St Giles Terrace is Thomas House. This was the replacement from 1834, for St Thomas’ Hospital in Bridge Street, an earlier building dedicated to Becket, which had fallen into secular use by that time. Sadly the Georgian one is now offices and only the façade remains.
Continue
your walk east along Spencer Parade, part of St Giles Street. At the crossroads
by the hospital containing Becket Ward, turn right, down Cheyne Walk. [This
is the line of the old Norman walls. These were pushed into the ditch on
the orders of Charles II. As a result it is possible to walk round the line
of the Norman walls, a distance of about 2.5 miles.]
At
the bottom of Cheyne Walk, turn left into Bedford Road and on the left you
come to Becket’s Well. This structure, dated 1843, preserves the spring
that was in the middle of the carriageway until this date. It has been recorded
as St Thomas’ Well for many centuries. Northampton Becket Rotary Club
and Northampton Borough Council restored it in 2006.
Walk up into Derngate and notice number 82. This was Becket House in Derngate High School days. Now it is the gift shop and restaurant to the Charles Rennie Mackintosh House at number 78. Cross over Bedford Road into Becket’s Park opposite and continue your walk west through the park. This was Cow Meadow until 1935 but, lying as it does between Becket’s Well and St Thomas Hospital, it may have older associations.
Keeping parallel to the road, follow the Norman ditch line west, now Victoria
Promenade and overlooked by new flats named Becket’s View. Eventually
you are forced to leave Becket’s Park by the old railway embankment
that served St John’s Street Station until 1939. Exit and cross over
Victoria Promenade somewhere here, taking special care at these busy roundabouts.
Once over to the Norman town side, continue your walk west to reach the
Plough Hotel, a short distance further on.
The Plough Hotel is just below the site of the south gate of the Norman town. On the Plough Hotel’s south side was the town ditch, crossed by a Norman bridge from c.1110. On this bridge stood St Thomas Hospital, built and rebuilt at this point from c.1173 onwards. Naturally the bridge over the ditch became known as St Thomas’ Bridge. Bridge Street takes its name from this town ditch bridge, not the river. As stated previously, the final building was demolished by 1874 together with several adjacent properties to link up Victoria Promenade with Bridge Street, so that cattle could be driven through the gap to the nearby cattle market.
Turn
right at the Plough, up Bridge Street, [part of that series of roads that
was the medieval great north road of its day, like Sheep Street] towards
town centre. Pass St John’s Hospital Chapel on your right, established
in 1138, and when you reach the top of Bridge Street, turn left into Gold
Street [back with that east/west route in Roman times]. When you enter Gold
Street you are passing from the new Norman town of 1100 into the old Anglo-Saxon
town.
Cross over Kingswell Street (left), and College Street (right) within a
few yards, which was the inside line of the Anglo Saxon defences.
Walk down Gold Street, across Horseshoe Street, Horse Market, and enter Marefair, keeping to the left. A short distance further on notice St Peter’s church on your left, another of the nine 12th century churches endowed to St Andrew’s Priory.
St Thomas would have known this building, restored in 1123, as the castle church. Did he preach here Tuesday 13 October 1164, on the martyrdom of St Stephen?
Cross over from St Peter’s, at Black Lion Hill, and enter Chalk Lane, which follows the eastern line of the demolished massive castle, to the castle mound remnant, off Chalk Lane car park. Look west from the mound across the railway station and its car parks, over the flood plain towards the Express Lifts tower and adjacent flats. This was the site of St James Abbey. To the right is St James Church built in 1868-71 with its later tower built in 1920 to commemorate the fallen in the 1914-18 war. Becket would have known this view, towards the then new abbey, in happy times and tragic times later.
Finish the walk, choosing option 1 or 2.
Finishing the walk - option 1
Exit the castle site and walk back to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre along St Mary’s Street past Castle Hill Chapel and up Horse Market, right into Lady’s Lane, left into Sheep Street where you started your walk.
Finishing the walk - option 2
Walk
west out of the Norman town, passing the postern gate, moved from the west
side of the castle, standing forlornly by the station on your right. Did
Becket go through this to reach St Andrew’s Priory grounds during
his stay in Northampton? Or a similar one directly connecting the Priory
to the Castle?
It is a short walk over West Bridge into St James End, part of the old manor of Duston. From here, take your ease in a Victorian public house, the Thomas A Becket (on the site of the Green Man), just another reminder of St Thomas in Northampton.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the office staff at Northampton Cathedral and at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the staff at Northampton Central Library and the Old Bank Public House St Giles’ Square, Mrs Anna Smith and Tony Allen for their help and co-operation during the production of this article.
References
- Beckets Well
- Church of the Holy Sepulchre (select ‘Northampton, Holy Sepulchre’)
- Google Maps
- St Giles Church (select ‘Northampton, St. Giles’)
- Roman Catholic Cathedral
- St Peters Church
- St James Church
- St Thomas Hospital
- Northampton Castle
- Rotary Club of Northampton Becket
Article kindly written by local historian Dave Blackburn.
© David Blackburn 2007