Northampton
Northampton is a large market town and local government
district in the East Midlands region of England. It
is ca. 67 miles (108 km) northwest of London on the
River Nene, and is the county town of Northamptonshire.
The district's population is 200,100 and the urban area's
189,474, making Northampton the 21st-largest settlement
in England and the UK's 3rd-largest town without official
city status, after Reading and Dudley. Northampton is
the most populous district in England not a unitary
authority, a status it failed to obtain in the 1990s
local government reform. Northampton's population has
increased greatly since the 1960s, largely due to planned
expansion under the New Towns Commission in the early-1960s.
It was a major centre of shoemaking and other leather
industries; only specialist shoemaking companies such
as Church's and Trickers, formerly in nearby Earls Barton,
survive. A large number of old shoe factories remain,
now coverted to offices or accommodation, surrounded
by terraced houses built for factory workers. Northampton's
main private-sector employers are now in distribution
and finance rather than manufacturing, and include Barclaycard,
Nationwide Building Society, Panasonic, Travis Perkins,
Coca Cola Schweppes Beverages Ltd, National Grid plc
and Carlsberg.
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