please empty your brain below
With due respect to the local population, that town centre shopping store list is depressing. I never planned to visit, and now I know that I never will.

✉ dg writes: that's the comment in today's (correctly addressed) sealed envelope.

Frank F | 07.05.22 - 7:46 a.m. | #

There's also Kirby Hall, around three miles northeast of Corby.

Andrew | 07.05.22 - 7:46 a.m. | #

When I lived in Leicester, many years ago, I was told that occasional encounters with Scottish banknotes were due to the proximity of Corby.

Malcolm of Kent | 07.05.22 - 8:34 a.m. | #

I'm a winner!
Please don't tell me the prize is a weekend in Corby.

Frank F | 07.05.22 - 8:44 a.m. | #

A fascinating look at a rather forlorn corner of England.
What colossal changes have hit this place through just one century.
Thanks for the tour.

Herbof | 07.05.22 - 8:46 a.m. | #

About thirty five years ago when my partner was looking for a social history PhD topic his supervisor suggested he research Corby and the impact of the mass immigration of Scots to the area. He went with something else and so I have missed out on 30 years of him being able to give me far too much detail on the place!

Joan | 07.05.22 - 8:47 a.m. | #

My mum and her friends would absolutely love that shopping list of stores. In fact, they'd probably be quite willing to get that hourly train to a place that has Primark, Home Bargains AND Wilko - the dream!

Jayne | 07.05.22 - 8:49 a.m. | #

That work of art outside the station is not bad.

Leuconoe | 07.05.22 - 8:52 a.m. | #

It's a shame it took so long to put in a proper rail link between London and Corby, its as though Corby needed to revitalise enough to justify being reconnected rather than it being done in the 1980s to reassure people that the town had a future following the closure of the steel works.

Central Corby screams 1950s new town - that's heritage architecture that is, although now its losing its prime function it may not survive much longer.

Rockingham Motor Speedway (2001-2018) was built on part of the British Steel site (according to Wikipedia).

Still Anon | 07.05.22 - 9:30 a.m. | #

I visited Corby steelworks in the mid-70s on a school trip. It was an integrated steelworks - everything from molten ore to finished tubes - and walking along the viewing gantries above this vast production line was an extraordinary experience.

FYI Rutland’s lesser-known reservoir, the Eye Brook, is just a few miles NW of Corby. The valley was flooded in the 1930s to provide the water the steelworks and its town would need. It’s more mature, and looks more natural, than Rutland Water, and is a pleasant place to walk.

Philip | 07.05.22 - 9:36 a.m. | #

Since the introduction of the electric service to Corby this year the frequency is now two trains an hour.
Quite fast as they only stop at Luton, Bedford, Wellingborough and Kettering.
And if you live anywhere on that line, other than those places, it's the only way to get to Leicester and beyond with a change at Kettering.

I too was curious about Corby and visited it three Saturdays ago, just for a look.
The heritage centre was open with a most friendly and informative custodian. Not a great deal on display in there but interesting nonetheless.

I can confirm that the wind howls through Willow Place.

Baldrick | 07.05.22 - 9:56 a.m. | #

Dr Beeching extinguished the previous station but one rather than the previous station, which closed in 1990 (having re-opened in 1987).

Betterbee | 07.05.22 - 10:31 a.m. | #

With the improved electric rail service, I guess they're hoping Corby will become an overspill commuter town. I imagine houses there are a lot cheaper than further in.

Mikey C | 07.05.22 - 10:37 a.m. | #

Interesting that you use the word 'overspill', Mikey C. In my youth it was referred to, perhaps unofficially, as a Glasgow overspill town. Glasgow's heavy industry was in a state of steep decline and it was yet to redefine itself.

Peter | 07.05.22 - 10:46 a.m. | #

What's this facility with a gigantonormous car park and no road sign?
[Streetview]

Dubidubno | 07.05.22 - 1:19 p.m. | #

Possibly associated with this.

The former Rockingham race track is full of cars too!

David | 07.05.22 - 1:30 p.m. | #

Thanks for a very informative travelogue to Corby. After reading it, I and ‘im indoors decided not to add the town to our ‘should visit’ list. 😉

Jo W | 07.05.22 - 3:10 p.m. | #

A Corby PlusBus for £3.60 would have been better than your £4.20 all-day ticket, since you came by train. (Assuming you didn't need to get down to Kettering to get home)

Nick B | 07.05.22 - 4:26 p.m. | #

The Scottish connection also means that Corby hosts an annual Highland Games – or it did when I was last there 20-odd years ago. Possibly the only place in England to do so?

Matt | Homepage | 07.05.22 - 4:28 p.m. | #

I was told years ago that kids growing up in Corby all had Scottish accents, but my own experiences suggest this is not so.

Basil Jet | 07.05.22 - 4:36 p.m. | #

My association of the names Corby and Kettering was that they still featured on the front and back of the diesel railbus which plied between Watford Junction and St Albans Abbey station before the line was electrified!

Nick K | 07.05.22 - 4:59 p.m. | #

There's at least one other town in England that has a Highland Games: Harpenden. This year's is set for July 11.

James Webber | 07.05.22 - 7:03 p.m. | #

Kirby Hall as mentioned by another Andrew is utterly splendid, and an easy bike ride or longer walk from Corby. I visited last week.

Andrew S | 07.05.22 - 7:57 p.m. | #

How strange! Currently re-reading John Burnside's brilliant memoir, 'A lie about my Father' (set mostly in Corby) and got a newsletter from Bill Drummond (Penkiln Burn) which was also all about Corby.

Johnny C | 07.05.22 - 8:40 p.m. | #

Corby town centre is very odd, in that one end just sort of stops in mid-air, with no natural link to anything around it. Most odd. Reminds me a lot of Bletchley, in the sense it now struggles to compete with larger neighbours and has a station that isn't quite as useful as it ought to be. Not quite sure what could be done to inject life back into it.

Phil | 09.05.22 - 7:55 a.m. | #

My parents moved to North Londonshire at the start of the glut of new homes being built circa 2007 (which shows no sign of abating). And what was a destitute, #1 crap town, with no rail links, is slowly changing - restaurants eventually winning out over tired pubs and bars, a cinema arrived, the swimming pool is a pull for plentiful galas. If you've a car, and as this is not London, most do, there are several historic woods, castle, estates, Rutland water, historic towns like Stamford, Oakham etc nearby and not to mention that coupled with eastern European migration, is now actually a good melting pot of cultures, which sets itself up for a better future.

Seemingly, it's a town that wins you over, eventually.

Paul | 09.05.22 - 10:44 a.m. | #











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