Drigg is a village situated in the

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

of Drigg and Carleton on the West Cumbria coast of the

Irish Sea The Irish Sea or , gv, Y Keayn Yernagh, sco, Erse Sie, gd, Muir Èireann , Ulster-Scots: ''Airish Sea'', cy, Môr Iwerddon . is an extensive body of water that separates the islands of Ireland and Great Britain. It is linked to the Ce ...

and on the boundary of the Lake District National Park in the Borough of Copeland in the county of

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in North West England, bordering Scotland. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local government, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumb ...

, England. Drigg and Carleton parish comprises the areas and settlements of Drigg, Stubble Green, Low Moor, Carleton, Saltcoats, Maudsyke, Wray Head, Hallsenna,

Holmrook Holmrook is a linear village in the English county of Cumbria. It lies along the A595 road on the west banks of the River Irt. The B5344 road connects it to Drigg, with its railway station less than two miles to the west. Two miles north-e ...

. The

population at the 2011 census was 449. Drigg sits to the north of the

River Irt The River Irt is a river in the county of Cumbria in northern England. It flows for from the south-western end of Wast Water, the deepest lake in England, leaving the lake at the foot of Whin Rigg, the southern peak of the famous Wastwater S ...

, with Carleton to the south of the river. The river runs from

Wastwater Wast Water or Wastwater () is a lake located in Wasdale, a valley in the western part of the Lake District National Park, England. The lake is almost long and more than wide. It is a glacial lake, formed in a glacially 'over-deepened' valle ...

lake to the

. There are three bridges over the river in the parish; the main bridge is in

which takes the

A595 road The A595 is a primary route in Cumbria, in Northern England that starts in Carlisle, passes through Whitehaven and goes close to Workington, Cockermouth and Wigton. It passes Sellafield and Ravenglass before ending at the Dalton-in-Furness ...

over the river. The

Cumbrian Coast Line The Cumbrian Coast line is a rail route in North West England, running from Carlisle railway station, Carlisle to Barrow-in-Furness via Workington and Whitehaven. The line forms part of Network Rail route NW 4033, which continues (as the Furnes ...

railway crosses the

at the head of the tidal estuary where the Irt joins the

River Mite The River Mite is a river in the county of Cumbria in northern England. The valley through which the river Mite runs is called Miterdale. The name Mite is thought to be of British origin and related to a root such as 'meigh': to urinate or dri ...

Ravenglass Ravenglass is a coastal village in the Copeland District in Cumbria, England. It is between Barrow-in-Furness and Whitehaven. Historically in Cumberland, it is the only coastal village in the Lake District National Park. It is located at the est ...

. There is an old small

packhorse bridge A packhorse bridge is a bridge intended to carry packhorses (horses loaded with sidebags or panniers) across a river or stream. Typically a packhorse bridge consists of one or more narrow (one horse wide) masonry arches, and has low parapets so ...

in the Drigg Holmes which does not take vehicles.

Drigg railway station Drigg is a railway station on the Cumbrian Coast Line, which runs between and . The station, situated north-west of Barrow-in-Furness, serves the villages of Drigg and Holmrook in Cumbria. It is owned by Network Rail and managed by Northern T ...

is on the

. The parish has a number of areas of natural interest: the sandy beach and dunes, Hallsenna Moor and Drigg Holmes. Part of the dunes are an important bird reserve, a local nature reserve and a

Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle of ...

. On 2 June 2010, Carleton became one of the settlements involved in a killing spree spanning Cumbria, when 52-year-old Derrick Bird shot and killed a person in the village.

Governance

Drigg is within the Copeland UK Parliamentary constituency,

Trudy Harrison Trudy Lynne Harrison (born 19 April 1976) is a British Conservative Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Copeland since the February 2017 by-election. It was the first time Copeland had elected a Conservative MP sin ...

is the

Member of parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

. Before

Brexit Brexit (; a portmanteau of "British exit") was the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February 2020 CET).The UK also left the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or ...

, it was in the

North West England North West England is one of nine official regions of England and consists of the ceremonial counties of England, administrative counties of Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside. The North West had a population of ...

European Parliamentary Constituency.

Low Level Waste Repository

During WW2 a Royal Ordnance Factory (ROF Drigg) was established at Drigg between the railway line and the sea. This is now the site of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority

low-level radioactive waste Low-level waste (LLW) or Low-level radioactive waste (LLRW) is nuclear waste that does not fit into the categorical definitions for intermediate-level waste (ILW), high-level waste (HLW), spent nuclear fuel (SNF), transuranic waste (TRU), or cer ...

repository. The site, which was opened in 1959 by the

United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority is a UK government research organisation responsible for the development of fusion energy. It is an executive non-departmental public body of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy ...

, covers about , and holds about one million cubic metres of

radioactive waste Radioactive waste is a type of hazardous waste that contains radioactive material. Radioactive waste is a result of many activities, including nuclear medicine, nuclear research, nuclear power generation, rare-earth mining, and nuclear weapons r ...

, although historic disposal records are incomplete. Much of the waste came from the nearby Sellafield nuclear complex.

References

External links

Cumbria County History Trust: Drigg
(nb: provisional research only – see Talk page)
Drigg Reserve LNR citation
{{authority control Villages in Cumbria Borough of Copeland Radioactive waste repositories de:Drigg

Governance

Low Level Waste Repository

See also

References

External links