Kettering

Kettering is a market and industrial town and civil parish in the North Northamptonshire unitary authority area of Northamptonshire, England. It is located north of London and north-east of Northampton, west of the River Ise, a tributary of the River Nene. The name means "the place (or territory) of Ketter's people (or kinsfolk)". In the 2011 census Kettering's built-up area had a population of 63,675. It is part of the East Midlands, along with other towns in Northamptonshire. There is a growing commuter population as it is on the Midland Main Line railway, with East Midlands Railway services direct to London St Pancras International taking about an hour. Early history Kettering means "the place (or territory) of Ketter's people (or kinsfolk)". Spelt variously Cytringan, Kyteringas and Keteiringan in the 10th century, although the origin of the name appears to have baffled place-name scholars in the 1930s, words and place-names ending with "-ing" usually derive from the Anglo-Saxon or Old English suffix -inga or -ingas, meaning "the people of the" or "tribe". Before the Romans, the area, like much of Northamptonshire's prehistoric countryside, appears to have remained somewhat intractable with regards to early human occupation, resulting in an apparently sparse population and relatively few finds from the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic periods. About 500 BC the Iron Age was introduced into the area by a continental people in the form of the Hallstatt culture, and over the next century a series of hillforts were constructed, the closest to Kettering being at nearby Irthlingborough.