| Daventry | |
|---|---|
 Daventry New Street, looking towards Market Square | |
.svg)  Daventry Location withinNorthamptonshire | |
| Population | 28,123 (2021 Census) |
| OS grid reference | SP5762 |
| Civil parish |
|
| Unitary authority | |
| Ceremonial county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | DAVENTRY |
| Postcode district | NN11 |
| Dialling code | 01327 |
| Police | Northamptonshire |
| Fire | Northamptonshire |
| Ambulance | East Midlands |
| UK Parliament | |
| |
Daventry (/ˈdævəntri/DAV-ən-tree,historically/ˈdeɪntri/DAYN-tree) is amarket town andcivil parish inWest Northamptonshire, England, close toNorthamptonshire's border withWarwickshire. At the2021 Census, Daventry had a population of 28,123,[2] making it thesixth-largest town in Northamptonshire.
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The town is located 75 mi (120 km) north-north-west ofLondon via theM1 motorway, 14 mi (23 km) west ofNorthampton,10+1⁄4 mi (16.5 km) south-west ofRugby[3] and15+3⁄4 mi (25.5 km) north-north-east ofBanbury.
Other nearby places includeSoutham,Coventry and the villages ofAshby St Ledgers,Badby,Barby,Braunston,Byfield,Charwelton,Dodford,Dunchurch,Everdon,Fawsley,Hellidon,Kilsby,Long Buckby,Newnham,Norton,Staverton,Welton,Weedon andWoodford Halse. The town istwinned withWesterburg,Germany.
The town lies at around 110–210 m (360–690 ft) above sea level.[4] To the north and west, the land is generally lower than the town. Daventry sits on the watershed of theRiver Leam which flows toLeamington Spa,Warwick and the west of England and theRiver Nene which flows east. There is no river in the town; the largest gatherings of water are two reservoirs made to supply thecanal that swings from Watford Gap into the West Midlands through the 2,042 yd-long (1,867 m)Braunston Tunnel around the north of the town. To the north-west is Drayton Reservoir[5] and to the north-east is theDaventry Reservoir and country park.
Watford Gap is about 4 mi (6 km) north-east of the town; through this gap pass theA5 (Watling Street Roman road), theGrand Union Canal,West Coast Main Line, theNorthampton Loop Line and most recently the M1 motorway.
Daventry has several housing estates, which includeDrayton, Middlemore Farm, Lang Farm, Ashby Fields, Royal Oak, Timken, Stefen Hill, The Grange, The Southbrook, The Headlands and most recently Monksmoor Park.[6]
Destinations from Daventry | |
|---|---|
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The small historic core of Daventry, centred on High Street, Market Place, New Street, Sheaf Street and their surrounding streets is aconservation area, with most of its buildings dating from the 17th to 19th centuries including manylisted buildings.[7] Until the 1950s, Daventry was a small market town with a population of around 4,000. All of the subsequent growth of the town has occurred during the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Consequently, the historic core of the town is surrounded by modern roads, housing, andindustrial estates.[8]
There are twocountry parks on the edge of the town; just north-east of the town centre is theDaventry Country Park, based around a canalreservoir, just east of the A425. On the south-eastern edge of the town is theBorough Hill country park.
There are 74 buildings or groups of buildings[9] in the centre of Daventry that are on theList of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest led by theChurch of Holy Cross at grade I. Grade II*buildings include the Saracen's Head (now Wetherspoons[10]), the Moot Hall (see below), the Wheatsheaf (now a residential home), 27, 29, 36, 57, 59 High Street and 2, 20, and 22 Sheaf Street. Grade II listed buildings include several in Market Place, Church Walk, New Street, High Street, Sheaf Street and the United Reformed Church, the Burton Memorial (commemorating Edmund Charles Burton, Town Clerk of Daventry;[11] see photo at left),Danetre Hospital Offices (former workhouse) andMiddlemore Farmhouse (now a pub), also inDrayton – School Street and Orchard Street.
A street market is held every Tuesday and Friday in High Street,[12] although its original site was on the aptly named Market Square. There is a modern shopping precinct adjacent to the High Street called Bowen Square.[13]
An alternative pronunciation for Daventry used by locals is 'Daintree', but this has become less common.[14]
Daventry is overlooked by the 653 ft-high (199 m)Borough Hill on the eastern edge of the town. The hill has been the site of human activity dating back into prehistory: remains have been found of twoBronze Agebarrows, twoIron Agehill forts – one of which is the fourth largest found in Britain, anda later Roman villa and farming settlement.[15][16]
According to local folklore Daventry hadDanish (Viking) origins, this was partly due to the old pronunciation of Daventry asDaintry, which was interpreted as "Dane Tree", however in more modern interpretation the town's name is thought likelier to beAnglo-Saxon in origin: "Dafa's tree" (Dafa being a founding father orpaterfamila) and there was very likely a meeting tree, possibly on Borough Hill. Thus the name may have been formed on lines similar to Coventry ("Cofa's tree", i.e. "tree of Cofa").[17] Another theory which was popular in the 19th century, was that ofThomas Pennant, the Welsh naturalist and antiquarian, who acknowledged the town's 'considerable antiquity' and speculated that the name wasBrythonic,dwy-avon-tre (town of two rivers), a derivation seemingly supported by the town's topography, situated as it is between the sources of theRiver Leam, which flows west, and theRiver Nene which flows east.[18][19] This theory however is now discredited.[17]
Daventry was mentioned in theDomesday Book of 1086 asDaventrei.[20] It was recorded as belonging toCountess Judith, niece ofWilliam the Conqueror.[21]
In around 1108,Daventry Priory a smallCluniac priory was founded at Daventry, alongside the parish church.[21] The priory was closed in 1526 byCardinal Wolsey who granted its assets toChrist Church, Oxford.[22]
In 1203 amarket was first recorded at Daventry. The market benefited from Daventry's location upon the main road (now theA45 road) linking the important city ofCoventry withWatling Street (now theA5 road) which was the main route from the Midlands toLondon, which brought in much passing trade.[21]
In 1576 Daventrygrammar school was founded by William Parker, a woollen draper and native of the town. The original schoolhouse on New Street, dating from around 1600 still stands, although it is now a private house. That same yearQueen Elizabeth I granted Daventryborough status.[23]
The town was mentioned byWilliam Shakespeare inHenry IV, Part I (Act IV, Sc II), which refers to "the red-nosed innkeeper of Daventry". Shakespeare would have known Daventry due to its relatively close proximity toStratford-upon-Avon, and its position on the main route from the Midlands to London.[24]
During theEnglish Civil War, the army ofKing Charles I stayed at Daventry in 1645 after storming the Parliamentary garrison atLeicester and on its way to relieve thesiege of Oxford. The King stayed at the Wheatsheaf Inn, whilst hisRoyalist army camped on Borough Hill.[25]
According to local legend, it was during his stay at the Wheatsheaf Inn in Daventry that Charles was twice visited by the ghost of his former adviser and friend,Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, who advised him to keep heading north and warned him that he would not win through force of arms.[26]
However, Parliament's newly formedNew Model Army, led bySir Thomas Fairfax, was marching north from besieging Oxford after being instructed to engage the king's main army. Fairfax's leading detachments of horse clashed with Royalist outposts near Daventry on 12 June, alerting the king to the presence of the Parliamentary army. The Royalists made for their reinforcements atNewark-on-Trent but after reachingMarket Harborough turned to fight, which resulted in the decisiveBattle of Naseby, in which the Royalist army was heavily defeated by the Parliamentarians. The village ofNaseby is approximately 14 mi (23 km) northeast of Daventry.
English Dissenters founded a Dissenting chapel in the town around 1722 in buildings opposite The Wheatsheaf on the southern end of Sheaf Street. Later in 1752 aDissenting Academy was moved fromNorthampton to this site. The chemist and theologianJoseph Priestley studied there from 1752 to 1755. In 1789, the Academy moved back to Northampton.[27]
Daniel Defoe described Daventry as a "considerable market town which subsists chiefly on the great concourse of travellers on the old Watling Street way."[28]
During theGeorgian era of the 18th and early 19th century, a national system ofturnpike roads with improved road surfaces developed, this in turn allowed the development of a national system ofmail coaches and long distancepassenger stagecoaches. Daventry, being located on the main roads linking London with the West Midlands,Holyhead andLancashire, flourished as a coaching town. There were manycoaching inns in the town including theWheatsheaf, theSaracen's Head, thePlough and Bell, theDun Cow, and theBrown Bear.[29]
At the zenith of the coaching era in the 1830s, Daventry had become a major hub of the national network, with more than 250 coaches passing through the town every week, including services between London,Warwick,Birmingham,Liverpool and Holyhead, and Birmingham andCambridge.[29]
Reflecting Daventry's prosperity, many of the town's finest building were constructed during this period, including, most notably, theHoly Cross Church of 1758.[28]
TheIndustrial Revolution largely passed Daventry by, owing to its failure to become linked to the newer transport networks: TheGrand Junction Canal (now Grand Union) had opened in 1796, and passed a few miles north of Daventry. An arm from the canal to Daventry was proposed, and was included in the Act of Parliament authorising it, however this was never built.[30]
The opening of theLondon and Birmingham Railway in 1838 signalled the beginning of therailway age; almost immediately the coaching trade slumped and Daventry entered a long period of stagnation and decline which lasted for over a century: In 1841 Daventry had a population of 4,565, from thereon it went into steady decline until 1911, when it bottomed out at 3,516, and then slowly recovered, reaching 4,077 in 1951, but did not recover to the 1841 level until later in the 1950s.[31][32]
The London and Birmingham Railway passed a few miles to the east of the town through theWatford Gap. A branch line to Daventry was included in the original Act of Parliament, however, despite several earlier attempts, the line was not built until 1888, whena short branch was built fromWeedon toDaventry railway station. In 1895 the line was extended toLeamington Spa. However being only a branch line this did little to revive the town's economy.[31] The only significant industry to develop in the town during this time wasshoemaking, which at its height in the 1870s employed around 700 workers.[31]
In 1925, the newly createdBBC constructed a radio transmitting station onBorough Hill[33] just outside the town. Daventry was chosen because it was the point of maximum contact with the land mass of England andWales. From 1932 theBBC Empire Service (now theBBC World Service) was broadcast from there. The radio announcement of "Daventry calling" made Daventry well known across the world. It was the BBC's use of the literal pronunciation in this call-sign that resulted in the widespread displacement of the historical pronunciation "Daintree" (ˈdeɪntri). The transmitting station contributed to the town's population revival, as a number of BBC staff and their families moved into the area.[34]
At its height by 1990 the station had 43radio masts, however the station closed in 1992 and all but one of the radio masts was taken down, with most of the land being sold to Daventry District Council who opened it up to the public as a country park. A commercial unit of the BBC remained based locally for a few years after.[34] A busy directional radio beacon (VOR), identifier "DTY", for aircraft is situated approximately four mi (six km) south of the town. The town also gives its name to the busy Daventryair traffic control sector.
On the early morning of Tuesday 26 February 1935 the radio transmitter at Daventry was used for what became known as the "Daventry Experiment" which involved the first-ever practical demonstration ofradar, by its inventorRobert Watson-Watt andArnold Frederic Wilkins. They used a radio receiver installed in a van atLitchborough (just off theA5 about six mi (ten km) south of Daventry) to receive signals bounced off a metal-cladHandley Page Heyford bomber flying across the radio transmissions. The interference picked up from the aircraft allowed its approximatenavigational position to be estimated, and therefore proved that it was possible to detect the position of aircraft using radio waves. The success of the experiment persuaded the British government to fund the development of a network of full scale radar stations on the south coast of England, known asChain Home, which provided a decisive advantage to theRAF in theBattle of Britain in 1940.[35][36]
75 years to the day of the original launch, on 26 February 2010, teams from the Coventry Amateur Radio Society & The Northampton Radio Club re-enacted the 'Daventry Experiment'. Signals from GB75RDF atBorough Hill, reflected from aircraft (all of which were flown by radio hams), were detected in a receiving set housed in a replicaMorris van. The receiving station set up in the field that is the home to The Birth of RADAR memorial atLitchborough. The team was led by Brian Leathley, known as Andrew G8GMU.[37]
Borough Hill was also the site of theGee Eastern chain master transmitter mast: this was part of a radio navigation system used by theAllies duringWorld War II.[38]Borough Hill Roman villa is also located here.
The modern growth of Daventry occurred from the mid-1950s onwards. Real growth started in 1955 when thetapered roller bearing manufacturerBritish Timken opened a large factory in the town (the factory closed in 1993 although the distribution Centre stayed open until 2000).[39]
The town's fortunes were also boosted when the first phase of theM1 motorway was opened nearby, giving the town a direct motorway link withLondon, with the expansion of the motorway network connecting it to the north of England within a decade.
Despite the growth of the town,Daventry railway station was closed to passengers in 1958, with the line closing to freight in 1963.[34]
In 1961, Daventry was designated as an 'overspill' to house people and industry relocated fromBirmingham, as government policy of the time favoured movingpopulation and industry away from Birmingham. Although Daventry was not formally designated as aNew Town, its expansion bore many similarities to such developments: Aplanned expansion of the town was carried out as part of a three-way agreement betweenBirmingham City Council, Daventry Borough Council, andNorthamptonshire County Council: Birmingham's role was to buy land, and build houses andindustrial estates, Northamptonshire provided roads, schools and libraries, whilst Daventry provided drainage and sewage disposal.[40]
Work on the official expansion of Daventry began in the second half of the 1960s, when Birmingham City Council purchased nearly 1,000 acres (400 ha) of land to be developed for housing and industrial use.[40] The first phase of this expansion was constructed on the south-east slopes of Borough Hill and was named the Southbrook Estate. It was designed and laid out by the architect J A Maudsley[41] forCity of Birmingham Architects Department. This began in 1966.[41] and is designed with short terraces of dwellings grouped around a series of cul-de-sacs[41] grouped around a large looped access road around the edge of the hill. There is a central focal point which has schools for children from early years to senior level. There are several service shops and originally there was an estate public house but that was demolished in the mid 1990s. There is also a community centre.
The plan got off to a good start, and by 1972 more than 1,000 new families had moved to Daventry, along with many new industries. However by the mid-1970s growth had slowed sharply, due to a combination of the faltering national economy and public spending cuts. The planning agreement had originally been intended to last for 30 years (until 1991) however Birmingham City Council decided to pull out of it half way through in 1976, due in part to spending cuts, but also as it had become clear that the town's plan was falling short of expectations: The target population had been 36,000 by 1981, but actual growth was much slower than this, nevertheless, between 1961 and 1981 the population had nearly tripled from 5,860 to 16,178; Subsequent growth in the following decades has been slower and driven mainly by private developments. The population had reached 22,367 by 2001, and by 2011 it was 25,026.[40]
Daventry was struck byan F0/T1 tornado on 23 November 1981, as part of the record-breaking nationwide tornado outbreak on that day.[42] In 1995RAF Daventry was listed as aUSAF communication facility by the thenMinister of State for the Armed ForcesNicholas Soames in answer to a question fromMax Madden.[43] RAF Daventry is most likely the transmitter base at a former WW1 isolation hospital site on theStaverton to Newnham road which was eventually sold by theMinistry of Defence in 2007.
In 2006, theoutdoor pool – which had been built and funded by Daventry residents in the 1950s following the drowning of three children in the local reservoir – was closed due to funding difficulties.[44] In 2007, Daventry began plans to modernise the town with a futuristicpersonal rapid transit system that would link outer estates to the town centre, and a canal arm withmarina next to the former site of the outdoor pool. In May 2018, the District Council dropped the building a canal arm and marina scheme in favour of achievable projects.[45]
In March 2018, the town's High Street was used as a filming location for the feature film,Nativity Rocks!.[46]
Theancient borough of Daventry was created in 1576, and was reconstituted as amunicipal borough in 1835. In 1974 the municipal borough was abolished and merged into the much largerDaventry District, which also included a large rural area.[8] In 2021 the Daventry District was itself abolished and merged into the even largerunitary authority area ofWest Northamptonshire.[47]
From 1974, the area of the former municipal borough of Daventry became anunparished area withcharter trustees, until 2003, when Daventry became acivil parish and gained its ownTown (parish) Council. Daventry Town Council currently has 16 councillors representing four wards. The Mayor of Daventry is elected annually by the members of the town council. The town council has responsibility for a number of functions such as managing the town's market, open spaces, allotments, cemeteries, museum, and CCTV.[48] All other local services are the responsibility of West Northamptonshire Council.
Daventry is represented in Parliament by theDaventry Parliamentary constituency, which is a safeConservative seat, the MP representing the seat since 2024 has beenStuart Andrew.
Cummins have their largest UK plant at the town where they manufacture some of their largestdiesel engines that are suitable for marine, railcar and generator set uses.
The proximity of motorways and mainline railways has led to the development of an increasingly largelogistics facility, north of Daventry. Thiswarehousing and distribution centre is known as theDaventry International Rail Freight Terminal (DIRFT). It is situated betweenRugby andCrick and theA5 and junction 18 of theM1 motorway (its original northern terminus in 1959 until 1964).Stagecoach Midlands provides regular bus services D1 and D2 from Daventry andRugby. The terminal is served by a direct connection to theNorthampton Loop of theWest Coast Main Line railway.
Due to the proximity to the M1, Ford[58] opened a large national spare parts distribution warehouse on the Royal Oak Industrial Estate in 1972. The 130-acre (53 ha) building tookTaylor Woodrow a year to build at a cost of[citation needed]£2.25M and was for many years considered the largest building in the United Kingdom.
A new national distribution centre was opened in 2004, run byDHL, for J D Wetherspoon on the Drayton Fields Industrial Estate, north west of the town.
In 2011 a landmark building was opened in Eastern Way – theiCon. It provides conferencing and 55 supported units for businesses involved in low carbon construction and environmental technologies. It also includes a café, exhibition space and an auditorium for 300 people. Funding for the project came from theEuropean Regional Development Fund, theEast Midlands Development Agency and theWest Northamptonshire Development Corporation.Daventry District Council andNorthamptonshire County Council have donated the land for the project. It is now operated by theUniversity of Northampton.
Daventry is near theM1 motorway with access to two junctions: 18 to the northeast and 16 to the southeast of the town.
TheA45 runs around Daventry; eastbound it connects it with theA5 and the M1 at junction 16, and then Northampton. To the north-west it connects toRugby,Coventry, andBirmingham.
TheA425 connects Daventry withSoutham,Leamington Spa andWarwick to the west.
TheA361 connects Daventry to theA5 atKilsby to the north, which then gives access to junction 18 of theM1. To the south-west the A361 connects Daventry with junction 11 of theM40 and thenBanbury.
These roads all converge on the town's outer ringroad.
Local and regional bus services are provided byStagecoach Midlands[59] from their bases in Northampton, Rugby and until December 2016, Leamington Spa.Stagecoach in Oxfordshire provides an hourly service to Banbury. Villages without a regular connection to Daventry had a bookable County Connect[60] bus service run byCentrebus under a County Council contract until 1 September 2014, when the operator changed toKier Fleet Passenger Services. All subsidies for bus services in Northamptonshire have been discontinued due to financial mismanagement atNorthamptonshire County Council, meaning most of these bus services will end.[61]
The nearest railway station to Daventry today isLong Buckby railway station about 4 miles (6 km) northeast, whereWest Midlands Trains provide services via theNorthampton loop of theWest Coast Main Line, northbound toRugby and stations toBirmingham New Street, and southbound toNorthampton and stations toLondon Euston.
Daventry once hadits own railway station on the formerLondon and North Western Railway branch-linefrom Weedon to Leamington Spa, which opened in 1888 and was closed on 15 September 1958 and is now demolished. Daventry is now one of the largest towns in England without its own railway station.[62]
In addition to this the formerBraunston and Willoughby railway station on theGreat Central Main Line which ran to the west of Daventry, was originally calledWilloughby for Daventry when it opened in 1899, despite the station being around five miles north-west of Daventry in neighbouringWarwickshire. It was later renamedBraunston and Willoughby for Daventry in 1904, before the reference to Daventry was finally dropped in 1938. The station itself closed in 1957, and the line in 1966.[63]
The nearest major international airports areBirmingham Airport andEast Midlands Airport.
Sixth form provision in the town has been confounded by successive Government policies. From September 1989, the County Council decided to close the newest of the three comprehensive schools (The Grange) and strip the Parker E-ACT Academy and Danetre and Southbrook Learning Village (DSLV) of their sixth forms. The Grange site was converted to become Daventry Tertiary College, providing education and training for 16- to 18-year-olds. When Government moved control of Further Education colleges and their assets in 2001 from county councils to theLearning and Skills Council, the Tertiary College was included. To provide greater financial and professional support, it became part ofNorthampton College in August 2004. Due to the strong and popular attractions of the sixth forms of nearby Rugby schools, the Daventry Learning Partnership was set up by the two secondary schools and the college (and later includedMoulton College) to jointly provide a more competitive offering. After the county councils had failed in efforts to reduce the attraction of the Rugby schools, it was decided in 2010 to reintroduce sixth forms to the two Daventry secondary schools, both of which have now transformed into academies.
Today, Daventry has twosecondary schools:The Parker E-ACT Academy to the north of the town andDanetre and Southbrook Learning Village[64] to the east, near the BBC transmitter, both with thriving sixth-forms and the Daventry campus of Northampton College. In September 2013Daventry University Technical College opened. It was part of theuniversity technical college programme, and offered 14–19-year-old students technical as well as academic courses of education. After failing to attract enough pupils the college closed at the end of the 2016–17 school year, lasting only four years.
Primary education facilities includeSt James' Junior School,Falconer's Hill Academy,Abbey Church of England Academy,Ashby Fields Primary School – which is avalues-based school,The Grange School and the primary part ofthe Danetre and Southbrook Learning Village.Monksmoor Park CE Primary School opened in September 2018. Many children from Daventry are enrolled with the surrounding village schools, such as Byfield, Badby, Newnham, Woodford Halse, Barby and Welton.
The estimated population of Daventry in 2020 was roughly around 27,586 people.[2] In 2011, the population sat at around 25,026 when the census was conducted that year.[2]
| Year[32][8][2] | 1801 | 1821 | 1841 | 1881 | 1911 | 1931 | 1951 | 1961 | 1981 | 2001 | 2011 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Population | 2,582 | 3,326 | 4,565 | 3,859 | 3,516 | 3,609 | 4,077 | 5,860 | 16,178 | 21,731 | 25,026 |
Daventry is an ethnically homogenous town with aWhite majority of 95.4% in 2011, however this majority has slightly declined from when census figures for ethnicity were first collected in 1991. In theDistrict of Daventry in 1991, whites made up a near unanimous 99% of the population however declining to 96.5% by 2011.Asian British people have increased in proportional size, making up 0.5% in the district rising to 1.5% in 2011. In the town proper, this is 2.3%. Other groups such asMixed people,Black British and Other ethnicities have also increased in size, migration being the main reason behind growth for the latter two.
| Ethnic Group | 1991[65] | 2001[66] | 2011[2] | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number | % | Number | % | Number | % | |
| White: Total | 17,755 | 98.2% | 21,197 | 97.5% | 23,876 | 95.43% |
| White:British | – | – | 20,738 | 95.4% | 22,476 | 89.8% |
| White:Irish | – | – | 209 | 1% | 185 | |
| White:Gypsy / Traveller / Irish Traveller | – | – | – | – | 14 | |
| White:Other | – | – | 250 | 1.2% | 1,201 | |
| Asian or Asian British: Total | 218 | 1.2% | 277 | 1.3% | 569 | 2.33% |
| Asian / Asian British:Indian | 88 | 136 | 279 | |||
| Asian / Asian British:Pakistani | 35 | 36 | 85 | |||
| Asian / Asian British:Bangladeshi | 0 | 0 | 14 | |||
| Asian / Asian British:Chinese | 64 | 78 | 80 | |||
| Asian / Asian British: Other Asian | 31 | 27 | 111 | |||
| Black or Black British: Total | 66 | 0.4% | 77 | 0.4% | 183 | 0.66% |
| Black / Black British:Caribbean | 38 | 48 | 48 | |||
| Black / Black British:African | 7 | 22 | 116 | |||
| Black / Black British:Other Black | 21 | 7 | 19 | |||
| Mixed: Total | – | – | 74 | 0.3% | 369 | 1.44% |
| Other: Total | 39 | 0.2% | 21 | – | 29 | 0.12% |
| Other: Arab | – | – | – | – | 3 | - |
| Other: Any other ethnic group | – | – | – | – | 26 | 0.1% |
| Total | 18,078 | 100% | 21,733 | 100% | 25,026 | 100% |
The country of birth complexion in Daventry is as follows for 1991, 2001, 2011 and 2021:
| Country of birth | 1991[65] | 2001[67] | 2011[68] | 2021[69] | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number | % | Number | % | Number | % | Number | % | |
 United Kingdom | 17,367 | 96.1% | 20,794 | 95.7% | 22,864 | 91.4% | 23,529 | 83.7% |
 European Union | – | – | 391 | 1.8% | – | – | 2,472 | 8.8% |
| EU-14 | – | – | – | – | – | – | 424 | 1.5% |
| EU-8 (A8) | – | – | – | – | – | – | 1300 | 4.6% |
| All other EU countries | – | – | – | – | – | – | 748 | 2.7% |
| Europe (Other) | – | – | 162 | 0.7% | 1,336 | 5.3% | 1023 | 3.6% |
| Africa | – | – | 124 | 296 | 389 | 1.4% | ||
| Middle East and Asia | – | – | 220 | 384 | 539 | 1.9% | ||
| Americas and Caribbean | – | – | 89 | 118 | 124 | 0.4% | ||
| Antarctica and Oceania (or Other) | – | – | 55 | 28 | 50 | 0.2% | ||
| Outside the United Kingdom | 708 | 3.9% | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| Total | 18,075 | 100% | 21,734 | 100% | 25,026 | 100% | 28,126 | 100% |
The religious composition of Daventry for 2001 and 2011 is as follows:
| Religion | 2001[70] | 2011[71] | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number | % | Number | % | |
| Holds religious beliefs | 16,026 | 73.7% | 15,584 | 62.3% |
 Christian | 15,717 | 72.3% | 14,977 | 59.8% |
 Buddhist | 54 | 107 | ||
 Hindu | 71 | 136 | ||
 Jewish | 13 | 20 | ||
 Muslim | 74 | 0.3% | 192 | 0.8% |
 Sikh | 47 | 91 | ||
| Other religion | 50 | 61 | ||
| (No religion and Religion not stated) | 5,705 | 26.3% | 9,442 | 38% |
| No religion | 4,167 | 19.2% | 7,846 | 31.4% |
| Religion not stated | 1,538 | 1,596 | ||
| Total population | 21,731 | 100% | 25,026 | 100% |
Daventry has aNon-League football team,Daventry Town F.C., who play at Master Abrasives Stadium.Daventry United F.C. folded at the end of the 2011–12 season.
The town's Stefen Hill Sports Ground is home to Daventry Amateur Athletic Club[72] and Daventry Rugby Club.[73]
The town has two main public parks, Daventry Country Park, which features a large children's play area, fitness equipment, a range of marked walks, nature trail, and cafe, and Daventry reservoir. The smaller Daneholme park is quite close by and is bounded by the old railway cuttings, Daneholme Avenue, Ashby Road and Welton Road.
There is a leisure centre[74] in the town centre which is well attended. It features swimming pool area, gym and a number of multi-sport areas. A children's soft play area and cafe provide non-sports-based facilities.
Golfers can enjoy the course at Daventry and District Golf Club,[75] which is effectively on the side of Borough Hill, or head slightly out of town to Staverton Park Golf Club.[76]
2013 saw the opening of a purpose-built skate park[77] on New Street Recreation Ground, this was constructed in consultation with local youth groups and features challenges for boarders of all abilities.
On 7 June 2017 a major cycling event took place in the town when Daventry hosted the Grand Depart ofThe Women's Tour. The first stage started on the High Street and completed a lap of the town before heading off to finish inKettering.[78] On 14 June2018 The Women's Tour stage two began inRushden and finished in the High Street in Daventry.[79]
GB3,GB4 andBritish F4 teamFortec Motorsport are based in the town.[80] Fortec previously raced in theBritish GT Championship,Blancpain Endurance Series andBlancpain Sprint Series.
Local news and television programmes is provided byBBC East andITV Anglia. Some areas of the town can pick upBBC East Midlands andITV Central.
Daventry’s local radio stations areBBC Radio Northampton on 104.2 FM,Heart East on 96.6 FM,Inspiration FM on 107.8 FM andConnect Radio on 107.4 FM.BBC CWR can also be received in the town throughDAB.
The local weekly newspaper serving the town is theDaventry Express.[81]
SeeCategory:People from Daventry
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link){{cite book}}:|work= ignored (help)An outdoor swimming pool, built following the deaths of five children in a reservoir, is shut down.
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