Where to Stay in Corby, England

What is Corby known for?

The castle comes with a shrunken medieval village, a moat and warrens, and that group of earthworks carries the older layer of the ground around it. Corby was the administrative headquarters of the Borough of Corby from 1974 to 2021, and it holds town and civil parish status within the North Northamptonshire district. The Corby Heritage Centre keeps that record.

Church of St John the Baptist, Church of St Michael and two dedications to St Peter mark the parishes around it, with Haunt Hill House and Shire House among the older stone.

What are the main landmarks in Corby?

Rockingham Castle is the headline, listed together with a shrunken medieval village, a moat and warrens that spread across the ground below its walls. Five churches come next on the list. The Church of St John the Baptist, the Church of St Michael, the Church of St Leonard, Rockingham and two churches dedicated to St Peter make up the parish record.

Haunt Hill House, Shire House, Ivy House and The Old School House stand among the listed stone, with 14 Little Oakley out in the village. The Corby Heritage Centre and the Great Oakley Cricket Club Ground round it off.

What is the history of Corby?

Rockingham Castle and the shrunken medieval village beside it are the oldest thing on the record here, a castle with its moat and warrens standing over ground that once carried a settled village. The village went. The Church of St Leonard, Rockingham survives from that older parish landscape, alongside the Church of St Peter, the Church of St Michael and the Church of St John the Baptist.

Haunt Hill House belongs to the same stone tradition, and Shire House, Ivy House and The Old School House carry it into the built-up parish. 14 Little Oakley stands out in the fields. The modern town is an administrative creature: from 1974 to 2021 Corby served as headquarters of the Borough of Corby, and the parish sits inside the North Northamptonshire district. The borough was dissolved.

Corby stands north-east of Northampton, twenty-three miles out, close enough to matter and far enough that the town ran its own affairs across that period. The Corby Heritage Centre holds the account of how the town grew, while the Great Oakley Cricket Club Ground carries the village side of the same story. Little Oakley and Great Oakley keep their names on that record.

Where is Corby?

Corby sits inland in Northamptonshire, twenty-three miles north-east of Northampton, on the ground the North Northamptonshire district covers beyond the county town. The sea plays no part here. Rockingham lies out past the built-up area, with Great Oakley and Little Oakley among the villages that ring the town.

The parish and the wider built-up area cover much the same ground, and the castle at Rockingham looks over open country rather than streets.

What is the climate of Corby?

Inland, and far from salt. Nothing maritime reaches Corby quickly: the town sits well inside Northamptonshire, so the temperate year arrives without a sea to soften either end of it. Cricket at the Great Oakley Cricket Club Ground keeps to the warmer half of the year.

Rockingham Castle and its warrens are open ground, which makes the wind more noticeable there than in the streets of the town.

How do you get to Corby?

The approach is overland from Northampton: Corby stands north-east of the county town, twenty-three miles out, inside the North Northamptonshire district. There is no coast road. Rockingham is the way in from that side, past the castle and the earthworks of the shrunken medieval village.

Great Oakley and Little Oakley sit on the lanes around the town, and anyone arriving for the Corby Heritage Centre or the Church of St John the Baptist ends up in the centre.