Corby is a town with a population of 53,500 people in Northamptonshire in the East Midlands of England. The area that is now Corby has evidence of human artefacts dating from The Mesolithic and Neolithic eras. Invaders from Denmark arrived in the area in the eighth century led by a warrior called Kori. A residential settlement was created by the Danish invaders called "Kori's By" meaning Kori's settlement. Today there is a housing estate in Corby called Danesholme in recognition to the Danish settlement that used to be on the site of the housing development. The village was recorded in the year 1086 in the Domesday Book as 'Corbei', which is pretty close to the name 'Corby' that we use today. The emblem for Corby, or 'logo' in today's parlance, is a raven which is an alternative meaning in ancient Danish for the word Corbei. Indeed the sound of the word is reminiscent of the call of a raven. The Domesday Book, in which the village was mentioned, is a record of all the land and property in England and some of Wales. It was produced to enable taxes to be collected without arguments about who owned what land or property.

In the year 1226 the then King of England, Henry III, granted Corby the right to hold two fairs and a market each year. Queen Elizabeth I was ruling in the year 1568 when she granted the town a Royal Charter with some amazing concessions. It let the landowners of the town out of paying tolls for using the roads, and excused them from paying dues, which was the income tax of the day. Not only that, the Royal Charter gave all the men of Corby the option of not serving in the army if they wished to be excused from this. It is believed that Queen Elizabeth did this out of gratitude for being rescued by Corby people when she got into difficulties when she was hunting in Rockingham Forest. There are different stories about the nature of the Queen's difficulties. One was that she fell from her horse and could not get up, and the other story was that she and her horse got stuck in a bog. Either way she was rescued by the good people of Corby, and wanted to reward the people of the town.

The people of Corby have celebrated their Royal Charter every twenty years since the year 1862 with an event called The Corby Pole Fair. At the start of the fair, the Royal Charter is read out in full by town criers who are positioned at the three entrances to the town. Then there is a church service to bless the town and the day's proceedings. Then the fair begins. There is a pageant, food in the form of an Ox roast, and games in the form of climbing the greasy pole. During the fair, notable people of the town are carried around on chairs. These would be typically the rector, the chairman of the town council and the oldest person in the town. The bells of the parish church are rung throughout the day. The last pole fair in the town was held in the year 2002 and the next one will take place in the year 2022.