[2] In 1086 when the Domesday Book was completed, Finedon (then known as Tingdene) was a large royal manor, previously held by Queen Edith, wife of Edward the Confessor.

[5] At the time of the Domesday Book Finedon was one of only four towns listed with a population greater than 50 in Northamptonshire - the others being Northampton, Brackley and Rushton.

The 23 April 1789 was appointed a day of thanksgiving to commemorate the event, which in Finedon was celebrated with bell ringing, fireworks and the firing of cannon.

It was built to commemorate the death of his eldest son, Lieutenant Commander William Digby Dolben, who drowned off the west coast of Africa on 1 September 1863, aged 24.

[1] The town is now under the jurisdiction of North Northamptonshire Unitary Authority following the county wide restructuring of local government in 2021; prior to this, it was within the Borough of Wellingborough.

The town of Finedon rises to approximately 90 metres Above Ordinance Datum from the River Ise, with the historical centre of the settlement occupying a shallow south-west facing valley.

The contemporary point of maximum elevation in the parish is the summit of the disused Sidegate Lane Landfill Site, located south of the town at approximately 108 metres Above Ordinance Datum.

Finedon's origins are likely related to the availability of water from the "Town Brook" which historically flowed through the central axis of the settlement.

The Town Brook was dammed in the 1780s by instruction from Sir William Dolben to create a lake in the parkland associated with Finedon Hall.

[13] Finedon's main park, complete with outdoor tennis courts and an open place popular among dog walkers and cyclists.

Rather than filling in the railway cutting and quarry and returning it to agricultural land, the people of Finedon campaigned to retain it as an important wildlife area.

The park is owned by the Borough Council of Wellingborough and is managed by a team of volunteers from the Finedon branch of the Northamptonshire Wildlife Trust to maximise its benefit for the flora and fauna.

Old coppiced lime trees estimated to be over three hundred years as well as yews of considerable age are to be found alongside the labyrinth of trails that cross the site.

The name Cally Banks comes from the process of burning iron ore to remove impurities, leaving a deposit called calcine which provides the poor soil conditions in which wildflowers flourish.

Finedon, much like the rest of the British Isles, experiences an oceanic climate and as such does not endure extreme temperatures and benefits from fairly evenly spread rainfall throughout the year.

Pre-school and early years' education for ages 2 and up is catered for by St Michael's playgroup, rated "Good" by Ofsted in July 2014.

Other older buildings in the town also use the local ironstone, notably the vicarage and a house opposite the church built in 1712 as a charity school for girls.

[19] In the early part of Britain's Industrial Revolution, the Northamptonshire ironstone was ignored as a source of iron ore because unlike areas such as South Wales and the north of England, it had no coal to power the furnaces.

The open-top furnace produced pig iron from 1866 to 1891,[21] and numerous quarry pits to the north, east and south of the town were engaged in the laborious task of clearing back overlying rocks (sometimes up to 25 feet thick) using wheelbarrows and planks.

By 1869 they were leasing quarries on the Finedon Hall estate and built a narrow-gauge tramway to connect to the Midland Railway,[23] and from there the ore was transported by rail to their furnaces at Stanton by Dale, Derbyshire.

[26] Neilson's original pits were exhausted by 1892 and he leased new land on the east side of Finedon Road, immediately south of the town.

Rixon laid the 1,000 mm (3 ft 3+3⁄8 in) gauge Wellingborough Tramway to connect their ironstone pits to sidings of the Midland Railway.

[20] Around Finedon the quarries south of the town near Ryebury Hill and Sidegate Lane had been worked extensively between the 1870s and 1900s, using a labour-intensive method in which a long trench (or gullet) through the overburden was established, along which a tramway could transport the ore.

The overburden (often of considerable depth) was loaded into wheelbarrows and taken via planks suspended over the trench, to be dumped on the far side, so that the next section of ore could be dug out.

[30] Although the quarry is no longer in use, the surviving rock-face has been given legal protection for its value in showing a representative section through the Middle Jurassic sedimentary beds.