ROCKINGHAM, a town in Northamptonshire, in England, 87 miles from London, stands on the river Welland. It has a charity school, a market on Thursday, and a fair on Sep. 8. for five days. Its forest was reckoned one of the largest and richest of the kingdom, in which William the Conqueror built a castle; it extended, in the time of the ancient Britons, almost from the Welland to the Nene, and was noted formerly for iron works, great quantities of flags, i. e. the refuse of the iron ore, being met with in the adjacent fields. It extended, according to a survey in 1641, near 14 miles in length, from the west end of Middleton-Woods to the town of Mansford, and five miles in breadth, from Brigstock to the Welland; but is now dismembered into parcels, by the interposition of fields and towns, and is divided into three bailiwicks. In several of its woods a great quantity of charcoal is made of the tops of trees, of which many waggon-loads are sent every year to Peterborough. There is a spacious plain in it called Rockinghamshire, which is a common to the four towns of
of Cottingham, Rockingham, Cerby, and Gretton. King William Rufus called a council here of the great men of the kingdom. In 1811 the population was 230. W. Long. 0. 46. N. Lat. 52. 32.