Communications.—Two main lines of the L.M. and S. rail way cross the county, linking London with the industrial north west. The first is the Wolverton (Bucks) Blisworth, Rugby (Warwick) line, with an alternative route to Northampton, and branches north-east to Peterborough and north to Market Har borough (Leics.) ; with it are connected at Blisworth junction, branch lines through Towcester, west to Stratford-on-Avon (War wick) and south-west to Banbury (Oxon). The second is the Wellingborough, Kettering, Market Harborough line with a branch to Oakham (Rutland). There are other branch lines. A main line of the L. and N.E. railway passing through the south of the county, connects with the G.W. railway at Banbury through Woodford. The Grand Junction canal, which is connected with the Oxford canal, enters the county at Braunston on the borders of Warwickshire, and passes by Daventry and Blisworth into Buck inghamshire, a branch connecting it with Northampton. The Grand Union canal unites with the Grand Junction near Daventry, and runs north until it joins the Leicester canal at Foxton, branches passing to Welford and Market Harborough.
Population and Administration.—The area of the whole county is 638,612 ac. ; this total includes the soke of Peterborough, which is itself an administrative county, area 53,464 ac. Pop. (1931) 361,273, or without the soke 309,428. In Domesday the county is mentioned as containing 3o hundreds, but it then in cluded a considerable part of Rutland. These divisions were first
reduced to 28, and in the Reign of Henry II. to 20, their present number. The administrative counties include four municipal boroughs, namely, Brackley, Daventry, Higham Ferrers and Peter borough, together with the municipal and county borough of Northampton (92,314). There are one court of quarter sessions and nine petty sessional divisions. The borough of Northampton and the liberty of the soke of Peterborough have each a separate court of quarter sessions and a separate commission of the peace. The total number of civil parishes is 346, of which 33 are in the soke of Peterborough. The ancient county contains 297 entire ecclesiastical parishes or districts, wholly or in part, most of them being in the diocese of Peterborough ; but small parts of the county fall within the dioceses of Oxford, Ely and Worcester. For parlia mentary purposes the county is divided into four divisions, Daven try, Kettering, Peterborough and Wellingborough. The parlia mentary borough of Northampton returns one member.
See Victoria County History, Northamptonshire; John Norden, Speculi Britanniae, pars altera, or A Delineation of Northamptonshire (172o) ; John Bridges, History and Antiquities of Northamptonshire, compiled by Rev. Peter Whalley (2 vols., Oxford, 1791) ; Francis Whellan, History, Topography and Directory of Northamptonshire (2nd ed., London, 1874).