Corby 

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Corby received its royal charter from Elizabeth I in 1568 and the queen also exempt the villagers from tolls and dues because men of Corbei had come to her assistance after she fell off her horse in nearby Rockingham Forest. The village continued in a quiet, unassuming way until the 1930s when it went into an industrialised boom period following the discovery of large scale iron beds in the area. The steel works closed in the eighties but left Corby irrevocably changed as new business’ moved in to fill the void.

Kirby Hall is a fantastic, stone-built Elizabethan mansion, which begun in 1570 and has 17th Century alterations. Jane Austen’s ’Mansfield Park’ was filmed here. It has wonderful gardens and is full of wandering peacocks.

• Northeast of Corby is the village of Rockingham, which is dominated by a castle, which was built by William the Conqueror. The castle is open to the public on Sundays and Bank Holiday Mondays throughout the summer. Charles Dickens was a regular visitor and the castle is Chesney Wold in Bleak House.