Approx. 1970. The memory of catching a double decker bus with my mum, that would drive from the town centre up to the Weston Favell area and drive around the outer roads so that the passengers could view the foundations of the newest build houses. I seem to remember the new roads were part laid too. I was a child at the time and even the foundations looked modern, the outlined gardens seemed massive too.

Even as a child you could tell this was going to be the start of a kind of new phase for Northampton, it just felt modern and as if it was a new start.

But I remember not many people being on those buses.

My second memory is of the Derngate bus station actually situated in Derngate, this was before the Greyfriars bus station replaced it on a new location in 1976. I used to go riding at the Farm which was located where Wootton fields is now, the actual farm house and stables probably would have been where the Wootton Fields shops are located, there is a nursery I think there too now.

Back to the bus station – I liked going there because it was an adventure. My mum and me would get a green bus because we were going into what was the countryside, so green buses were the county ones, red buses were town I believe and green buses would be travelling to the outskirts or into the villages. There seemed a definite divide of town and countryside at that time, before the proposed housing started to be built in the East Hunsbury, Camp Hill, Mereway and Wootton Fields area. These areas were fields and I remember the top of the London road and the Rothersthorpe road being just fields.

Photo Credit: thanks to Northampton Transport Heritage