Grafton Underwood is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

North Northamptonshire North Northamptonshire is one of two local authority areas in Northamptonshire, England. It is a unitary authority area forming about one half of the ceremonial county of Northamptonshire. It was created in 2021. Its notable towns are Ketterin ...

, England. At the time of the 2001 census, the parish's population was 134 people, increasing to 146 at the 2011 census. The village was used in

Helen Fielding Helen Fielding (born 19 February 1958) is an English novelist and screenwriter, best known as the creator of the fictional character Bridget Jones, and a sequence of novels and films beginning with the life of a thirty something singleton in Lo ...

Bridget Jones Bridget Rose Jones is a fictional character created by British writer Helen Fielding. Jones first appeared in Fielding's ''Bridget Jones's Diary'' column in ''The Independent'' in 1995, which did not carry any byline. Thus, it seemed to be an actu ...

novels as her childhood home. The villages name means 'Grove farm/settlement'. The affix refers to

Rockingham Forest Rockingham Forest is a former royal hunting forest in the county of Northamptonshire, England. It is an area of some lying between the River Welland and River Nene and the towns of Stamford and Kettering. It has a rich and varied landscape, wit ...

. The

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...

parish

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * Chris ...

is dedicated to St James the Apostle. It is a Grade I listed building.

RAF Grafton Underwood Royal Air Force Grafton Underwood or more simply RAF Grafton Underwood is a former Royal Air Force station located northeast of Kettering, Northamptonshire, England. Royal Air Force use The airfield at Grafton Underwood was opened in 1941 an ...

was assigned to the

United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

Eighth Air Force The Eighth Air Force (Air Forces Strategic) is a numbered air force (NAF) of the United States Air Force's Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC). It is headquartered at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana. The command serves as Air Force ...

in 1942 as USAAF Station 106. The village was the location of the second meeting of the early

Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardia ...

tennis event called the

North Northamptonshire LTC Tournament The North Northamptonshire LTC Tournament . also known simply as the North Northamptonshire LTC was a brief Victorian era men's and women's grass court tennis tournament founded in 1880. It was organised by the North Northamptonshire Lawn Tennis C ...

in June 1881.Routledges Sporting Annual (1882) Lawn Tennis in 1881. George Routledge and Son. London. p.69.

References

Villages in Northamptonshire Civil parishes in Northamptonshire North Northamptonshire {{Northamptonshire-geo-stub