Covington History Group was formed with the aim of researching, recording and presenting the history of the village. Meetings take place on the fourth Monday of the month from September to April at 7:30pm in the Village Hall. The programme for each 'season' can include visiting speakers, primary document research, archaeology and additions to our timeline. Visitors are very welcome to come along to Group meetings.  We also go on interesting outings, which usually include a very good lunch!

Topics have included the school, the manor, the history of the church, the genealogy of the village and the medieval field system. Some highlights of recent years have been a Reminiscences Evening, visits to local record offices, history dinners, talks on the workhouse and the architecture of the church, the recording of oral history and the archaeology project.

We have produced a fun and interesting History Trail for the village and also revised the History of the Church information leaflet, both of which are available as hard copies in the Church and Village Hall. A comprehensive booklet on the History of Covington School, published with assistance from the Goodliff Fund, is available to purchase from the Covington History Group. This is an excellent resource for research and of particular value for anyone studying history of education. If you are interested in purchasing a hard copy, please drop the History Group a note via our contact form below. Alternatively a digital copy can be downloaded below alongside our other resources.

History of Covington School information booklet
History of Covington Church information leaflet
History Trail  information leaflet

With help and guidance from Jigsaw (Cambridgeshire), the Covington History Group has found evidence of people living continuously in the parish since the Bronze Age. There was an impressive Romano British settlement, with several families of ordinary people living in roundhouses and farming the pastures pretty much as has continued for the intervening 2000 years.

In Saxon times, it would appear there was iron smelting activity – possibly with the ore coming from nearby Raunds. The village really expanded in medieval times and plenty of utilitarian pottery from the Lyveden area has been excavated.

The Group has had enormous fun learning archaeological skills and has put together reference collections of pottery and bone found in the area (see links below). Reports of the excavations have been lodged with the Archaeological Data Service.  Investigations continue!

Follow the links below to find out more:

Archaeology of Covington Leaflet
Replica Roman Kiln
Manor Field Training Dig
Prehistoric and Saxon Pottery Reference Collection
Roman Pottery Reference Collection
Medieval Pottery Reference Collection
COVTP14 Report
Archaeology Data Service - (search for 'Covington' in the 'Where' search box)

For more information, check out @CovingtonDigs on Twitter.

Covington is a small village, consisting of never more than 200 souls for most of its history, so attempting a genealogy of the entire village is a reasonably achievable target.

Simon Parsons is currently distilling parish records, gravestones, photographs, personal histories and stories into a genealogy database. The site is being regularly updated, with 900 People and 255 Families entered as of the last update in January 2020.

You can access the database by clicking here.