The Wickets

Desborough is an old Northamptonshire ironstone town that grew up around boot-making and weaving, and it still has the feel of a working town rather than a commuter dormitory — a compact high street with independent cafés, a couple of traditional pubs, and everyday shops within easy reach of most streets. The surrounding countryside is the real draw: the Desborough Greenway follows a disused railway line out of town on foot and by bike, and the gentle farmland of the Welland valley rolls north towards Market Harborough. There's a remarkable amount of history within a short drive, including Rushton Triangular Lodge, Thomas Tresham's extraordinary Elizabethan puzzle in stone, the great seventeenth-century house and parkland at Boughton, and the medieval Eleanor Cross at Geddington. Rockingham Forest's ancient woodland lies to the east. The A6 runs straight through, linking Kettering and Market Harborough, with the A14 close by for the M1 and the A1. Harrington's wartime airfield, just outside town, now houses a small museum to the squadrons once based there.