Homes to Rent and Buy in Rushden

Rushden is about twelve miles north of Bedford on the A6, just over the border in Northamptonshire. With Higham Ferrers it forms one built-up area of around 40,000 people, and Rushden itself had nearly 32,000 at the 2021 census.

It grew on boots and shoes, with well over a hundred factories at its peak, and a few are still making shoes today. Some of the old factories have been turned into flats. The novelist H. E. Bates grew up here and wrote about it as “Evensford”. Rushden Hall, the oldest house in town, is now the town council’s home, set in 32 acres of public parkland, and the town centre is a conservation area.

Rushden Lakes, opened in 2017 off the A45, has changed the area. It has around 40 shops, a cinema, restaurants, kayak hire, climbing and adventure golf, with a Wildlife Trust visitor centre overlooking the lake. The old railway line is now the Rushden Greenway for walking and cycling, and the transport museum in the 1894 station runs a short heritage line.

There’s no station in town; Wellingborough, about five miles away, has East Midlands Railway trains to London St Pancras. The Stagecoach 50 runs to Bedford up to every half an hour on weekdays. Homes here generally cost less than similar ones in Bedford, which makes Rushden popular with first-time buyers and tenants.