Oundle

Oundle (ˈaʊndəl) is a market town and civil parish on the left bank of the River Nene in North Northamptonshire, England, which had a population of 6,254 at the time of the 2021 census. It is north of London and south-west of Peterborough. The town is home to Oundle School. The town's name origin is uncertain. It is probably an old district name, in a grammatical form suggesting a tribal name, 'the Undalas'. Discoveries of prehistoric and Bronze Age, Iron Age and Roman materials suggest that Oundle has been a settlement location for several thousand years. Findings have included a number of Iron Age coins, and Roman bronze pins, coins and skeletons. A significant Roman find was part of a Roman cup discovered in the church yard of St. Peter's Church in the early 19th Century. Further excavation on the site led to the findings of many Roman coins, some from the time of the reign of Emperor Claudius. The finding of red tile and building stone at a site near Ashton Road, Oundle is seen as suggestive that there may have been a Roman villa there; a nearby archaeological evaluation found a ditch containing fragments of Romano-British pottery. The Saxon invasion saw the arrival of a tribe called Undalas which possibly meant undivided. Oundle was the site of a hospitium, a building used by monks to give shelter and assistance to travellers, which dates back to 638 AD. It is the death place of St Wilfrid in 709 AD where he had consecrated a church as well as being the location of one of his monasteries. The current St Peter's Church occupies the same site as St Wilfrid's original church. The first clear reference to Oundle is to be found in a 715 account by Eddi, who was the chantor to St Wilfrid, who referred to it as Undolum. Bede variously refers to it as Inundalum and Undulana mœgð. Saint Cetta or Cett, a 7th-century saint, is the Patron Saint of Oundle. Very little is known of him but according to the Anglo-Saxon Secgan Manuscript he was buried in the monastery at Oundle, near the River Nene, around 1000 AD and a chapel to him built in the 11th century, on the small knoll beyond the end of St Osyths Lane.