Nobottle

Nobottle
240px Townsend Farm, Nobottle
File:Northamptonshire UK location map.svg Nobottle  Nobottle shown within Northamptonshire
OS grid reference	SP672630
District	Daventry
Shire county	Northamptonshire
Region	East Midlands
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	Northampton
Postcode district	NN7
Dialling code	01604
Police	Northamptonshire
Fire	Northamptonshire
Ambulance	East Midlands
EU Parliament	East Midlands
UK Parliament	Daventry
List of places UK England Northamptonshire

Further information: List of lost settlements in Northamptonshire

Nobottle is a hamlet in the Daventry district of the county of Northamptonshire in England. It borders the Althorp estate, which owns much of the property. Nobottle used to have a 600yd rifle range (the only one in Northamptonshire), now shut by the MOD some 20 years (local knowledge). The Midshires Way long distance footpath passes through Nobottle. A Roman building was excavated here in 1927-9 and a hoard of 814 coins found, spanning several hundred years, but mostly of the late 4th century (Pevsner, The Buildings of England: Northamptonshire, 1961). With only 13 houses, about 1/2 a mile long, Nobottle is one of the smallest hamlets in England. However, Nobottle gave its name to a Saxon Hundred, and in 1849 the Nobottle Hundred comprised 18 parishes, with 9,000 inhabitants, though the hamlet itself then only had 99 inhabitants (Whellan, Directory of Northamptonshire, 1849). Nobottle is a place name in the north west corner of the map on the front endpapers of The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, although it is not known if the author borrowed the unusual name from the Northamptonshire hamlet.