Pesthouse Wood, so named because of a seventeenth century plague isolation house which was built on this sylvan site. The pest house was still visible in 1920 "in a ruinous state" and was then demolished to provide stone for the village hall.

The original site of the County Infirmary which was established in 1743 stands at 9, George Row, in the heart of the city . Apart from the shop fronts, the facade is substantially unaltered from the 18th century. The hospital contained 80 beds when it first opened. The building was formerly a private house.

Founded in 1838 by Dr Thomas Octavius Prichard as the Northamptonshire County General Lunatic Asylum, the hospital was built on land purchased with money from disbandment of the local Yeomanry units and donations were given for the establishment of a building for 'care of the insane'. The asylum housed 70 patients, 'private and pauper', and was made a charitable trust. In the 1870's, a separate County Asylum for pauper patients was opened and the original County General Lunatic Asylum changed its name to St Andrew's Hospital, which today is a non-profit making charitable trust.

St Andrew's was one of the first hospitals to adopt completely a policy of non-restraint.