All Saints' Church, Northampton

Today we made one of our regular visits to G's parents in Northampton.

In the afternoon we took G's mum into town to do some shopping and also visited 78 Derngate, the house remodelled by Charles Rennie Mackintosh for Wenman Joseph Bassett-Lowke. I had hoped to come away with a blip from this visit, but though the interior of the house is fascinating I didn't find the exterior photographically inspiring, and I wasn't allowed to use the camera inside.

Fortunately I had taken plenty of photos of the town centre earlier in the afternoon, and my favourite is this one of All Saints' Church. This elegant building was built after the Great Fire of Northampton in 1675. The statue is of Charles II and below it you can see some of a long inscription which explains why it is there. Despite the fact that the king had razed Northampton's castle to the ground because the town favoured the Parliamentarians in the Civil War, the Earl of Northampton persuaded him to contribute 1000 tons of timber from the Royal forests of Salcey and Rockingham for the rebuilding of the church.

The full inscription reads:
This Statue was erected in memory of King Charles II who gave a thousand tun of timber towards the rebuilding of this church and to this town seven years chimney money collected in it.