town, East Northamptonshire district, administrative and historic county of Northamptonshire, England, on the River Nene. The manor was granted to the feudal landowner John, earl of Bedford, after the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII in the 1530s. The Church of St. Peter, with its crocketed spire, has work in Early English, Decorated, and Perpendicular styles. Oundle School—a well-known public (independent, fee-paying) school for boys founded in 1556 under the will of Sir William Laxton, lord mayor of London—was granted a royal charter in 1930; the school became famous under the headmastership (1892–1922) of Frederick William Sanderson (Sanderson, Frederick William). The town itself, small and residential in character with buildings of local gray limestone, has a twice-yearly fair. Pop. (2001) 5,345.