Drigg is a village situated in the
civil parish of Drigg and Carleton on the West Cumbria coast of the
Irish Sea and on the boundary of the
Lake District National Park
The Lake District National Park is a national park in North West England that includes all of the central Lake District, though the town of Kendal, some coastal areas, and the Lakeland Peninsulas are outside the park boundary.
The area was desi ...
in the
Borough of Copeland
The Borough of Copeland is a local government district with borough status in western Cumbria, England. Its council is based in Whitehaven. It was formed on 1 April 1974 by the merger of the Borough of Whitehaven, Ennerdale Rural District ...
in the county of
Cumbria, England.
Drigg and Carleton parish comprises the areas and settlements of Drigg, Stubble Green, Low Moor, Carleton, Saltcoats, Maudsyke, Wray Head, Hallsenna,
Holmrook. The
civil parish population at the
2011 census was 449.
Drigg sits to the north of the
River Irt, with Carleton to the south of the river. The river runs from
Wastwater lake to the
Irish Sea. There are three bridges over the river in the parish; the main bridge is in
Holmrook which takes the
A595 road over the river. The
Cumbrian Coast Line railway crosses the
River Irt at the head of the tidal estuary where the Irt joins the
River Mite at
Ravenglass. There is an old small
packhorse bridge in the Drigg Holmes which does not take vehicles.
Drigg railway station is on the
Cumbrian Coast Line.
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 is the
Member of parliament.
Before
Brexit, 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
Royal Ordnance Factories (ROFs) was the collective name of the UK government's munitions factories during and after the Second World War. Until privatisation, in 1987, they were the responsibility of the Ministry of Supply, and later the Ministr ...
(ROF Drigg) was established at Drigg between the railway line and the sea. This is now the site of the
Nuclear Decommissioning Authority
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) is a non-departmental public body of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, formed by the Energy Act 2004. It evolved from the Coal and Nuclear Liabilities Unit of the Department o ...
low-level radioactive waste repository. The site, which was opened in 1959 by the
United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority,
covers about , and holds about one million cubic metres of
radioactive waste, although historic disposal records are incomplete. Much of the waste came from the nearby
Sellafield
Sellafield is a large multi-function nuclear site close to Seascale on the coast of Cumbria, England. As of August 2022, primary activities are nuclear waste processing and storage and nuclear decommissioning. Former activities included nucle ...
nuclear complex.
See also
*
Listed buildings in Drigg and Carleton
Drigg and Carleton is a civil parish located in the Borough of Copeland, Cumbria, England. It contains eight listed buildings that are recorded in the National Heritage List for England. All the listed buildings are designated at Grade II, ...
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