Northill is a village and

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 ...

in the

Central Bedfordshire Central Bedfordshire is a unitary authority area in the ceremonial county of Bedfordshire, England. It was created in 2009. Formation Central Bedfordshire was created on 1 April 2009 as part of a structural reform of local government in Bedfor ...

district of the county of

Bedfordshire Bedfordshire (; abbreviated Beds) is a ceremonial county in the East of England. The county has been administered by three unitary authorities, Borough of Bedford, Central Bedfordshire and Borough of Luton, since Bedfordshire County Council wa ...

, England about southeast of the county town of

Bedford Bedford is a market town in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 Census, the population of the Bedford built-up area (including Biddenham and Kempston) was 106,940, making it the second-largest settlement in Bedfordshire, behind Luton, whilst ...

. The 2011 census showed the population for Northill village as 338 and for the civil parish, 2,270. The parish includes the village of

Upper Caldecote Upper Caldecote is a village in the Central Bedfordshire district of Bedfordshire, England about south-east of Bedford. Its population at the 2011 census was 1,218. It is part of Northill civil parish. Most of Upper Caldecote is situated dir ...

and the

hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...

s of

Budna Budna is a hamlet located in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 Census the population of the hamlet was included in the civil parish of Northill. Budna is located to the north of the village of Northill, and near to Thorncote Green and Hatch. B ...

Lower Caldecote Lower Caldecote is a hamlet in the civil parish of Northill and part of the Central Bedfordshire district of Bedfordshire, England. The county town of Bedford is to the west. History In spring 1989 at Warren Villas Quarry, pits, ditches and wo ...

, Hatch,

Ickwell Ickwell is a small, rural village in the Central Bedfordshire district of the county of Bedfordshire, England about south-east of the county town of Bedford. The 2011 census shows its population as 298. Ickwell is part of the civil parish of No ...

and

Thorncote Green Thorncote Green (often known only as Thorncote) is a hamlet located in the Central Bedfordshire district of Bedfordshire, England. The settlement is located to the north of the village of Northill, and practically next to Budna. Thorncote Green ...

. Northill has a small village green with duck pond, owned by the parish council.

Geography

Northill is west southwest of Sandy, west northwest of

Biggleswade Biggleswade ( ) is a market town and civil parish in Central Bedfordshire in Bedfordshire, England. It lies on the River Ivel, 11 miles (18 km) south-east of Bedford. Its population was 16,551 in the 2011 United Kingdom census, and its es ...

, southwest of

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

and north of

Central London Central London is the innermost part of London, in England, spanning several boroughs. Over time, a number of definitions have been used to define the scope of Central London for statistics, urban planning and local government. Its characteris ...

. Area The civil parish covers an area of . Its eastern boundary is the

River Ivel The River Ivel is a north-flowing river in the western part of east of England. It is primarily in Bedfordshire; it is a tributary of the River Great Ouse and has sources including in the Barton Hills. Course The river Ivel has four headwater ...

. Landscape Topographically, Northill stands on a slightly elevated ridge that runs north to south. The village lies on the border of the Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire Claylands and the Bedfordshire Greensand Ridge; National Character Areas designated by

Natural England Natural England is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. It is responsible for ensuring that England's natural environment, including its land, flora and fauna, ...

. Central Bedfordshire Council has classified the local landscape around the village as within the Mid Greensand Ridge. The surrounding area is mostly arable farmland but there are significant areas of woodland to the west of the village, and parkland at Ickwell. The north and east of the parish form part of the predominantly flat, Lower Ivel Clay Valley. Elevation The village centre is above sea level. The east of the parish is flat and ranges between and . The land rises westwards to reach . Geology and soil type Northill village lies mainly on

Oxford clay The Oxford Clay (or Oxford Clay Formation) is a Jurassic marine sedimentary rock formation underlying much of southeast England, from as far west as Dorset and as far north as Yorkshire. The Oxford Clay Formation dates to the Jurassic, specifical ...

overlying Kellaways beds. Patches of glacial gravel (

till image:Geschiebemergel.JPG, Closeup of glacial till. Note that the larger grains (pebbles and gravel) in the till are completely surrounded by the matrix of finer material (silt and sand), and this characteristic, known as ''matrix support'', is d ...

) and

boulder clay Boulder clay is an unsorted agglomeration of clastic sediment that is unstratified and structureless and contains gravel of various sizes, shapes, and compositions distributed at random in a fine-grained matrix. The fine-grained matrix consists ...

are to the west of the village. The eastern and northern parts of the parish lie on glacial gravel, and alongside the Ivel are

superficial deposits Superficial deposits (or surficial deposits) refer to geological deposits typically of Quaternary age (less than 2.6 million years old). These geologically recent unconsolidated sediments may include stream channel and floodplain deposits, beach ...

of first and second terrace

river gravel River gravel is a name given to gravel composed of small pieces of rounded stone of various colors, usually no larger than a large coin. It is named for the effect of many years of rounding of the edges of the stones due to a flow of water over ...

and

alluvium Alluvium (from Latin ''alluvius'', from ''alluere'' 'to wash against') is loose clay, silt, sand, or gravel that has been deposited by running water in a stream bed, on a floodplain, in an alluvial fan or beach, or in similar settings. Alluv ...

. Ickwell lies on Ampthill Clay. Around the village the soil is highly fertile, lime-rich,

loam Loam (in geology and soil science) is soil composed mostly of sand (particle size > ), silt (particle size > ), and a smaller amount of clay (particle size < ). By weight, its mineral composition is about 40–40–20% concentration of sand–sil ...

y and clayey with impeded drainage. The eastern area of the parish has soil of low fertility, which is freely draining and slightly acid with a loamy texture. The night sky and light pollution

Light pollution Light pollution is the presence of unwanted, inappropriate, or excessive use of artificial Visible spectrum, lighting. In a descriptive sense, the term ''light pollution'' refers to the effects of any poorly implemented lighting, during the day ...

is the level of radiance (night lights) shining up into the night sky. The

Campaign to Protect Rural England CPRE, The Countryside Charity, formerly known by names such as the ''Council for the Preservation of Rural England'' and the ''Council for the Protection of Rural England'', is a charity in England with over 40,000 members and supporters. Forme ...

(CPRE) divides the level of night sky brightness into 9 bands with band 1 being the darkest i.e. with the lowest level of light pollution and band 9 the brightest and most polluted. Northill is in band 4. Darker sky is to the west but it is lighter towards Sandy and Biggleswade. The built environment Along Thorncote Road, Northill are a number of grade II listed, 17th and 18th century thatched cottages of timber-frame construction with colour washed brick and render. A pair of timber framed, clay tiled

gambrel A gambrel or gambrel roof is a usually symmetrical two-sided roof with two slopes on each side. (The usual architectural term in eighteenth-century England and North America was "Dutch roof".) The upper slope is positioned at a shallow angle, w ...

roofed, colour washed roughcast rendered cottages date to about 1800. At the junction of Thorncote, Bedford and Ickwell Roads stands Northill Grange. It has a double pile plan; i.e. there are two buildings under separate roofs one behind the other. On Ickwell Road are a pair of early 19th century timber-framed cottages with weatherboarding and a clay tile roof. Public footpaths The

Greensand Ridge Walk The Greensand Ridge Walk is a long-distance walk of that traverses the county of Bedfordshire in England, with brief sections in the neighbouring counties of Cambridgeshire and Buckinghamshire. Its southern endpoint is at Leighton Buzzard and ...

passes through the village and Home Wood.

History

Part of the ancient

hundred 100 or one hundred (Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 and preceding 101. In medieval contexts, it may be described as the short hundred or five score in order to differentiate the English and Germanic use of "hundred" to de ...

Wixamtree Wixamtree is an ancient hundred located in Bedfordshire, England. Wixamtree was one of the hundreds of Bedfordshire, with its council being the primary form of local government in its area from the Anglo-Saxon times to the nineteenth century. P ...

, the village was originally known as ''North Givell'', meaning the northern part of territory of the

. A similar version of this place-name is first evidenced in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

of 1086 which reads: ''Nortigble/Nortgiue(le): Pirot and Ralph from Eudo FitzHubert, Walter from Hugh de Beauchamp; William Speke. 1 1/2 mills.'' A variation of this spelling is "North Yevell" as seen in a 1440s legal record. The core of the village's buildings date back to the 14th century. To this day many examples of thatched roofing exist around Northill. Among the buildings stemming from the 14th century is the village's

Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...

Church of St Mary, which is built of

ironstone Ironstone is a sedimentary rock, either deposited directly as a ferruginous sediment or created by chemical replacement, that contains a substantial proportion of an iron ore compound from which iron (Fe) can be smelted commercially. Not to be con ...

and has been extensively restored over the subsequent centuries. The church itself contains fine examples of 17th-century painted glass. Sir

Humphrey Winch Sir Humphrey Winch (1555–1625) was an English-born politician and judge. He had a distinguished career in both Ireland and England, but his reputation was seriously damaged by the Leicester witch trials of 1616, which resulted in the hanging ...

Lord Chief Justice of Ireland The Court of King's Bench (or Court of Queen's Bench during the reign of a Queen) was one of the senior courts of common law in Ireland. It was a mirror of the Court of King's Bench in England. The Lord Chief Justice was the most senior judge i ...

, was born here in 1555. In Home Wood is a largely undisturbed, well preserved medieval fishery. Alongside are

earthworks Earthworks may refer to: Construction *Earthworks (archaeology), human-made constructions that modify the land contour * Earthworks (engineering), civil engineering works created by moving or processing quantities of soil *Earthworks (military), m ...

of a sizeable artificial

warren A warren is a network of wild rodent or lagomorph, typically rabbit burrows. Domestic warrens are artificial, enclosed establishment of animal husbandry dedicated to the raising of rabbits for meat and fur. The term evolved from the medieval A ...

. The site is a

scheduled monument In the United Kingdom, a scheduled monument is a nationally important archaeological site or historic building, given protection against unauthorised change. The various pieces of legislation that legally protect heritage assets from damage and d ...

managed by the Forestry Commission. Northill was the baptismal place, and possibly the birthplace, of the famous clockmaker

Thomas Tompion Thomas Tompion, FRS (1639–1713) was an English clockmaker, watchmaker and mechanician who is still regarded to this day as the "Father of English Clockmaking". Tompion's work includes some of the most historic and important clocks and watc ...

, who built the famous Pump Room Clock in 1709 that has since seen active service in the city of Bath.

's father was the village blacksmith, whose forge can still be seen on the Green at

Governance

Northill Parish Council consists of 12 elected councillors. The village is part of Northill ward for elections to the

Unitary Authority. Prior to 1894, Northill was administered as part of the hundred of

. From 1894 until 1974 it was in

Biggleswade Rural District Biggleswade was a rural district in Bedfordshire, England from 1894 to 1974. As initially created the district entirely surrounded but did not include Biggleswade, which was an urban district in its own right. In 1927 the parish of Sandy, whi ...

and from 1974 to 2009 in

Mid Bedfordshire District Mid Bedfordshire was, from 1974 to 2009, a local government district in Bedfordshire, England. Creation The district was formed on 1 April 1974 as part of a general reorganisation of local authorities in England and Wales carried out under the ...

. Northill is in the North East Bedfordshire parliamentary constituency of the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

of the

UK Parliament The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative supremac ...

Public transport

Bus route 74 to Bedford and Biggleswade operated by Grant Palmer runs hourly, daytime Monday to Saturday. Community bus operator, Ivel Sprinter runs a weekly service to Cambridge. The nearest railway station is Sandy.

Events and amenities

The Crown

public house A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and was ...

next to St Mary's Church, dates back to the 17th century. The property is partly timber-framed and partly brick, with a colour washed roughcast render throughout. The roofs are made of old clay tiles. Northill Village Hall was built in the 1970s. Northill is the starting place of the Ickwell May Day celebration that sees local floats and residents travel the mile or so to the neighbouring village of Ickwell. The May Day celebration has been held since 1565.

Footnotes

External links

About Britain, Northill

Northill Parish Council
{{authority control Villages in Bedfordshire Civil parishes in Bedfordshire Central Bedfordshire District