Crap TownsBritain's towns, rated by the people stuck in them

Crap Towns / Northamptonshire / Rothwell

Welcome to

Rothwell

Rum and milk at breakfast. It's tradition.
Twinned with a railway that never turned up

43/100Crap Score

Locals call it Rowell. They're Rowellians.

Too small for the table, which starts at 10,000 people, but it still scores 43. Higher scores are crapper.

How the score works

Have your say

Crap Town of the Year 2026/27

See the race

The public vote. It's separate from the Crap Score, and it closes on 31 December 2027.

Letters from the locals

Got something to say about Rothwell? Write in.

Rowell. Rum before breakfast.

Once a year the pubs open at dawn for rum and milk. The rest of the year the local firebugs set fire to the fields.

Rothwell, or Rowell if you're from there, has a fair where a bailiff on a horse reads out a proclamation flanked by blokes with halberds, and the pubs open at dawn for rum and milk. That's the highlight of the year, and a fair few of them don't remember it. Desborough reckons Rowell built a platform for a railway that never came. Rowell won't discuss it.

The Market House is on the Heritage at Risk list, which is a funny way to treat the one building in town anybody's heard of. The grass and the fields get torched at 1.8 times the typical town's rate, and on a Sunday the buses barely bother. There's a vape shop, obviously.

The editor, who had rum for breakfast

What the score is made of

Ten ingredients, each marked out of 100. Higher is crapper.

Rothwell's 71 for deliberate fires means it's crapper than 71% of towns.

  • Deliberate fires71/10010.1 per 10,000 people a year, April 2023 to March 2026
  • Fly-tipping62/10011.8 incidents per 1,000 people a year, North Northamptonshire council area, 2022-23 to 2024-25
  • Sewage spills61/100424 spill hours per 10,000 people a year, storm overflows within 1 km, 2023 to 2025
  • Anti-social behaviour58/10016.4 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
  • Food hygiene53/1003.0% rated 0 to 2, of the 33 food businesses with a rating
  • Air pollution48/1007.2 µg/m³ of nitrogen dioxide and 7.0 of fine particles, 2024 average
  • Rain46/100126 days of rain a year, at least 1 mm, 1991 to 2020 average
  • Criminal damage and arson37/1006.1 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
  • Serious road collisions14/1001.2 per 10,000 people a year, fatal and serious, 2021 to 2025
  • Broadband11/1002.3% of premises can't get gigabit, January 2026, and 4.7% across the North Northamptonshire council area
Your patch: NorthamptonshireTowns in the same county. Top of the table is crappest.
PosTownNationalScore
3Wellingborough260th74
4Kettering452nd54
5Corby472nd52
6Rushden521st47
–Rothwell–43
7Raunds562nd43
8Burton Latimer654th34
9Towcester680th31
10Desborough781st21

Below the dashed line: in danger of becoming nice.

Rothwell by numbers

Thinking of moving here? Don't say we didn't warn you.

Crime, muck and dodgy water

What's left on the high street

Getting about, getting online, getting rained on

North Northamptonshire council

Have a crap-off

Rothwell against your mate's town, and a match ticket to rub it in.

RothwellCrap Score 43
v
DesboroughCrap Score 21

Ten ingredients. One verdict. Who's crapper? The higher Crap Score takes it.