Abbots Ripton

Abbots Ripton is a village and civil parish in Cambridgeshire, England. Abbots Ripton is situated within Huntingdonshire which is a non-metropolitan district of Cambridgeshire as well as being an historic county of England. Abbots Ripton lies approximately north of Huntingdon on the B1090. The parish occupied some of land in 1801, which had reduced to by 2011. The parish of Abbots Ripton is home to 305 residents (2011 census). The village is also notable as the location of the Abbots Ripton railway disaster in 1876 in which a Flying Scotsman train was wrecked during a blizzard. The disaster led to important safety improvements in railway signalling. The civil parish includes the nearby hamlet of Wennington, which lies one mile north of Abbots Ripton. Wennington has a population of about 60 people¹.

Abbots Ripton is a village and civil parish in Cambridgeshire, England. Abbots Ripton is situated within Huntingdonshire which is a non-metropolitan district of Cambridgeshire as well as being an historic county of England. Abbots Ripton lies approximately north of Huntingdon on the B1090. The parish occupied some of land in 1801, which had reduced to by 2011. The parish of Abbots Ripton is home to 305 residents (2011 census). The village is also notable as the location of the Abbots Ripton railway disaster in 1876 in which a Flying Scotsman train was wrecked during a blizzard. The disaster led to important safety improvements in railway signalling. The civil parish includes the nearby hamlet of Wennington, which lies one mile north of Abbots Ripton. Wennington has a population of about 60 people.

Geography

The village of Abbots Ripton lies on the B1090, a minor road that runs from St Ives to the south-east to a junction with the B1043, north-west of the parish, close to the A1(M) motorway and just south of Sawtry. Abbots Ripton is situated north of Huntingdon, north-west of Cambridge and north of London. In 1801 the parish covered an area of , but by 2011 this had been reduced to . The village lies at around above sea level; the parish as a whole is almost flat, lying between and above sea level, with the lowest area in the south-east of the parish. Around north of the parish the land slopes down close to sea-level and The Fens start. The northern half of the parish contains a number of wooded areas, including Wennington Wood, Holland Wood, and Hill Wood. The land in the rest of the parish is used for arable farming, mainly wheat, barley and beans. The East Coast Main Line that runs from London to Edinburgh forms part of the western boundary of the parish and then crosses the parish to the north. The village of Abbots Ripton lies to the east of the railway.

Geology

In common with much of south-east England, the parish lies on a bedrock of Oxford Clay Formation mudstone which is a blue-grey or olive coloured clay that was formed between 156 and 165 million years ago in the Jurassic Period. Above this bedrock are superficial deposits characterised as Oadby Member Diamicton, that has formed within the last two million years during Ice Age conditions by glaciers scouring the land. Close to the streams the superficial deposits are of loose soil or sediments called alluvium that have formed during the last 12,000 years. To the north-east of Wennington, there are sand and gravel deposits formed by glacio-fluvial processes in the mid-Pleistocene period. The soil is classified as lime-rich loamy and clayey, which has impeded drainage and is high in natural fertility; it is suitable primarily for arable farming with some grassland. In 1891 a bore hole was made at Abbots Ripton Hall ( ) and drilled to a depth of showing that there was of clay, loam and gravel on top of of Oxford Clay.

Education

There is a Church of England primary school in Abbots Ripton for children between the ages of four and eleven years old. The school building was designed by Peter Foster who was the Surveyor of Westminster Abbey. The Ofsted report from June 2015 gave the school an overall effectiveness rating of Good. The school has places for 120 pupils but in 2015 there were only 91 pupils on the school roll.

Transport

Station Road marks the location of the former railway station on the East Coast Main Line. It operated from 1885-1958 when it was closed as part of the 'Beeching' cuts.

Text derived from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1366823195 under CC BY-SA 4.0; modifications have been made.