Higham Ferrers Information & Higham Ferrers Links at HealthHaven.com

**Higham Ferrers**
	Higham Ferrers
	; Higham Ferrers ; Higham Ferrers shown within Northamptonshire
Population	19,204
OS grid reference	SP9668
District	East Northamptonshire
Shire county	Northamptonshire
Region	East Midlands
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	WELLINGBOROUGH
Postcode district	NN10
Dialling code	01933
Police	Northamptonshire
Fire	Northamptonshire
Ambulance	East Midlands
EU Parliament	East Midlands
UK Parliament	Wellingborough
	List of places: UK • England • Northamptonshire

Coordinates: 52°18′21″N 0°35′04″W / 52.3057°N 0.5844°W / 52.3057; -0.5844

Higham Ferrers is a market town in east Northamptonshire, England, adjacent to (and forming a single urban area with) Rushden to the south. It has an estimated population of 7,204. The de Ferrers family were former Lords of the Manor. The town was one of the rotten boroughs and sent one MP to the unreformed House of Commons until it was stripped of its representation by the Reform Act 1832.

Higham Ferrers is also the birthplace of Henry Chichele.

The town is unusual in the UK if not Europe in having been a centre of short-run footwear production along with its neighbours of Rushden and Northampton. This trade was much reduced in the 1980s-2000s by a high exchange rate, but specialised firms and individual trades people remain in the area.

[edit] Transport

Higham Ferrers was the terminus of a short railway branch line on the Midland Railway from Wellingborough. There was an intermediate station at Rushden. Nowadays, the nearest operational railway station is at Wellingborough about four miles away, but there is no bus route connecting Higham Ferrers to Wellingborough Station. Historically, the town was at the crossroads of the A45 east-west route from Northampton to Cambridge, and the A6 north-south road from London to Leicester. It was a busy junction as both were long-distance transport corridors. The A45 bypassed the town in the early 1990s with a dual-carriageway, and the former route (through the narrow, but beautiful streets of Kimbolton) is now the B645, and the A5028 towards Wellingborough. As the A6 carried less traffic, a bypass came later and opened on 14 August 2003 for Rushden as well.

[edit] Sports

There is a cricket club in Higham Ferrers which was established in 1881 and also a bowls club. Rushden and Higham United Football Club, the successors to Higham Town and Rushden Rangers, are members of the Eagle Bitter United Counties League. The town is near Rushden and Diamonds football club, who play in Irthlingborough.

[edit] Education

The Ferrers School is on Queensway. The library is on Midland Road. The Higham infants school 'Wharf Roadd.' Higham Juniors School on is situated on the junction of Wharf Road/Saffron rd.'

The present church was founded by the charter of Henry III in about 1220, with the tower being the last part of the first phase to be completed in about 1250. A large proportion of the original church survives to the present.

The next phase of building in about 1320, was the widening of the North Aisle and the replacement of the Nave arcade, to allow for the insertion of the Lady Chapel. Additional windows were added to the Chancel and the South Aisle.

The Clerestory and the low pitched roof, with parapets is of early 15th century, possibly under the auspices of Bishop Henry Chichele The Archbishop also had the screen and Choir Stalls with their misericords installed in about 1425. It is worth noting that Archbishop Chichele also had All Souls College, Oxford built, and there is a definite family resemblance between both sets of misericords, it is possible that the same carver (possibly Richard Tyllock) created both sets of misericords.

In 1631 the spire and part of the tower collapsed, and then repaired shortly afterwards. This was the last work performed on the fabric of the church.

Two restorations occurred during the 19th century, but both seem to have been sympathetically performed.

[edit] Chichele College

Chichele College, in Higham Ferrers, was founded by Henry Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1422 as a college for secular canons. The College had provision for 8 priests, 4 clerks and 6 choristers. Prayers were said for the King, the Queen, the Virgin Mary, St Thomas, St Edward, Henry Chichele’s parents and the souls of the faithful departed. In later times the college became an inn, and then later a farm. Only ruins survive today, save for one hall now used for artistic exhibitions.

[edit] The Bede House

About the year 1422, when planning his College at Higham Ferrers, Archbishop Henry Chichele founded "In a place adjoining the Vicarage and the Churchyard", his Bede House or Hospital to be a dwelling place for 12 men over 50 years old to live "in close company" with one woman to look after them.

It consisted of a common open Hall. Each man had his little cubicle with its locker, divided off by a screen from his fellows, and the rest of the Hall formed a common room with a fine open fireplace, itself a relic of even older times. On the South, a sheltered garden was added by taking part of the land of the Vicarage.

In those days, no old age pensions were provided by a welfare state, but Henry Chichele provided each old man and the woman with a pension of 1d per day, at a time when the working man’s wage was little more than 5 new pence a week, and the Bedesman’s silver penny was worth more than the modern pension.

[edit] External links