Potton is a town 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 authorit ...

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

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 ...

, England, about east of the county town

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 ...

. Its population in 2011 was 4,870. In 1783 the Great Fire of Potton destroyed a large part of the town. The parish church dates from the 13th century, and is dedicated to St Mary. Potton's horse fairs were some of the largest in the country.

History

The village's name was spelled ''Pottun'' in 960 AD and ''Potone'' in the 1086

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 manus ...

. It is derived from the Old English for "farmstead where pots are made". Evidence of early-middle

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age ( Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostl ...

settlement in the form of ditches, a pit and

sherds This page is a glossary of archaeology, the study of the human past from material remains. A B C D E F ...

of pottery was found in 2009 by archaeologists at Vicarage Farm off the B1042 Gamlingay Road. The parish of Potton underwent parliamentary inclosure twice - once in 1775, and again in 1832.

Great Fire

The Great Fire of Potton started in a stack of clover in a field in the area of what is now Spencer Close, in 1783. King Street, half the Market Square and some of the Brook End area were destroyed. It was reported to have burned for a day. Local people raised £6,000 to help those most in need. The 13th-century

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in community activities, ...

, St Mary's, survived. Rebuilding after the fire has left the town with a number of Georgian buildings.Potton Town Guide (2006)

Market and fairs

King William II granted a market in 1094. Potton's market was one of the largest in

in the Tudor and Stuart periods, but declined after the Great Fire. Corn and straw plait were the principal goods in 1831. A fair was granted by Henry II in 1227. As of 1831, fairs were held in January, April, July and October. The town's horse fairs were some of the largest in the country, until they ended in 1932. The Shambles provided folding market stalls in the town square before brick buildings were put in place by Samuel Whitbread, the Lord of the Manor, in 1797. They became dilapidated in the 1930s and were demolished after the Second World War, with a modern library built in their place. The Clock House was opened on 23 July 1956 and used The Shambles' clock, illuminated dials and bell. In spring 2006, the mechanism was replaced with an automatic winding system costing £3,000.

Railway

The Sandy and Potton Railway, also known as Captain Peel's Railway, opened on 9 November 1857. It was established by Captain Sir William Peel VC, who resided at The Lodge. When the Great Northern Railway came to Sandy in 1850, Captain Peel had a branch line built to his estate and on to Potton. The railway's locomotive was named Shannon, after the frigate Captain Peel was commanding. He never saw his railway; he died of

smallpox Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) c ...

on 22 April 1858 in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. The engine itself is in the collection of the

National Railway Museum The National Railway Museum is a museum in York forming part of the Science Museum Group. The museum tells the story of rail transport in Britain and its impact on society. It is the home of the national collection of historically significant ...

and is currently housed at

Didcot Railway Centre Didcot Railway Centre is a railway museum and preservation engineering site in Didcot, Oxfordshire, England. The site was formerly a Great Western Railway engine shed and locomotive stabling point. Background The founders and commercial backers ...

. The Potton Barbershop Harmony Club named its male chorus '

Shannon Express Shannon Express is a male barbershop chorus based in Potton, Bedfordshire, England. The chorus formed in 1978 and has twice won the British Association of Barbershop Singers (BABS) gold medal, in 1995 and 1998. The chorus meets every Thursday f ...

' after the locomotive.

Potton railway station Potton was a railway station on the Varsity Line which served the small town of the same name in Bedfordshire. Opened in 1857 as part of Sir William Peel's Sandy and Potton Railway, the station was initially situated further south near the Bi ...

, which opened in 1862 and served the

Varsity Line The Varsity Line (or the Oxford to Cambridge railway line) was the main railway route that once linked the English university cities of Oxford and Cambridge, operated by the London and North Western Railway. During World War II the line was ...

between

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a College town, 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. Cam ...

, was closed in 1968. The railway was partly to blame for the decline of Potton market but made London accessible for the district's

market garden A market garden is the relatively small-scale production of fruits, vegetables and flowers as cash crops, frequently sold directly to consumers and restaurants. The diversity of crops grown on a small area of land, typically from under to ...

ers.

Potton Manor

Potton Manor was built in the 1860s. It was requisitioned by the armed forces and used as a laboratory during the war and as a car factory by Eva Pokorova and Otto van Smekal. The Champion car built in Potton was purchased from the National Motor Museum by Potton History Society, whose aim it is to restore the vehicle to full working order. The house was finally demolished in the early 1980s.

Land Settlement Association

In March 1935 the first

Land Settlement Association The Land Settlement Association was a UK Government scheme set up in 1934, with help from the charities the Plunkett Foundation and the Carnegie Trust, to re-settle unemployed workers from depressed industrial areas,Sir Malcolm Stewart Sir Percy Malcolm Stewart, 1st Baronet (9 May 1872 – 27 February 1951), was an English industrialist and philanthropist. He incorporated The London Brick Company in the 1920s which was at the time reputed to be the largest brick making comp ...

, Potton's last Lord of the Manor. Its purpose was to resettle unemployed men from coal mining areas in the north of England. Pig and poultry farming plus horticulture were the main activities, augmented by a central farm. Potton provided the model for a further 20 such estates across the country.

Air crash

On 18 September 1945, a B-24 Liberator bomber crashed on the southern edge of Potton Wood. Four men were killed; the place where it fell can still be seen.Forestry Commission: Potton Wood

Geography

Potton is east of the county town of

, south-west of

and north of London. The B1042 road links the town to Sandy and Wrestlingworth and the B1040 to

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 e ...

and Gamlingay. Area and landscape classification The parish covers an area of about 1,085 hectares.

Potton Brook Potton Brook rises east of Gamlingay, Cambridgeshire, and flows southwest and then south through Potton and the John O'Gaunt Golf Club and into Sutton, Bedfordshire. Potton Brook curves west and northwest, and joins the River Ivel northeast of ...

flows centrally, north to south through the parish and is the dividing point between two National Character Areas (NCAs) 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, ...

. West of Potton Brook lies within The Bedfordshire Greensand Ridge (NCA 90). East of the Brook forms part of The Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire Claylands (NCA 88). Central Bedfordshire Council has further classified the landscape into landscape character areas (LCAs). The town and west of the parish lie on the Everton Greensand Ridge (LCA 6C), land surrounding Potton Brook is part of the Dunton Clay Vale (5G) and Potton Wood and its surrounds are on Cockayne Hatley Clay Farmland (1C). Altitude The town centre is above sea level. The land slopes from north to south and reaches a high of at Potton Wood in the north-east of the parish. Geology, soil type and land use The town is mainly surrounded by arable farmland. There are areas of woodland to the south-east of the town at Pegnut Wood, alongside Potton Brook at the north-eastern edge of the town and at Potton Wood in the north-east corner of the parish. There is a sand quarry to the north-west of the town. Potton lies on Potton Sands; a geological formation whose strata date back to the Early Cretaceous age. Dinosaur remains are among the fossils that have been recovered from the formation. There is a band of alluvium along the course of Potton Brook and a strip of

gault The Gault Formation is a geological formation of stiff blue clay deposited in a calm, fairly deep-water marine environment during the Lower Cretaceous Period (Upper and Middle Albian). It is well exposed in the coastal cliffs at Copt Point in ...

to the east of the town. Potton Wood lies on

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 o ...

. The soil at the centre and west of the parish is of low fertility and is freely draining and slightly acid with a sandy texture. Alongside Potton Brook the soil is loamy and sandy with naturally high groundwater and a peaty texture. East of the brook is a strip of freely draining slightly acid loamy soil. There are highly fertile lime-rich loamy and clayey soils with impeded drainage at and to the south of Potton Wood.

Demography

At the time of the 2001 census, Potton had 4,473 inhabitants living in 1,869 households. The ethnic origin of 95.5% was British. 73.9% were Christian, 1.3% followed another religion and 24.9% stated no religion or were not religious.

Governance

Potton Town Council has 15 members and meets at the Community Centre (formerly the old fire station) in Brook End. The town is represented by a single councillor on

Central Bedfordshire Council Central Bedfordshire Council is the local authority for the Central Bedfordshire unitary authority area in the ceremonial county of Bedfordshire, England. It was created from the merger of Mid Bedfordshire and South Bedfordshire District Councils ...

and by the

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

Member of Parliament Richard Fuller for the North East Bedfordshire constituency at 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. T ...

Public transport

Centrebus (South) runs an hourly, daytime, Monday to Saturday service to Biggleswade and Hitchin (journey time one hour) via Wrestlingworth and Dunton (service 188) or via

Sutton Sutton (''south settlement'' or ''south town'' in Old English) may refer to: Places United Kingdom England In alphabetical order by county: * Sutton, Bedfordshire * Sutton, Berkshire, a location * Sutton-in-the-Isle, Ely, Cambridgeshire * ...

(service 190) and to Sandy direct (service 188) or via Gamlingay and Everton (service 190). Ivel Sprinter runs a return trip each Wednesday to Cambridge (journey time 43 minutes) and every Thursday to

St. Neots St NeotsPronunciation of the town name: Most commonly, but variations that ''saint'' is said as in most English non-georeferencing speech, the ''t'' is by a small minority of the British pronounced and higher traces of in the final syllable ...

(38 minutes). The nearest railway stations are Sandy and

Public services

The water supplied by

Anglian Water Anglian Water is a water company that operates in the East of England. It was formed in 1989 under the partial privatisation of the water industry. It provides water supply, sewerage and sewage treatment to the area formerly the responsibilit ...

for the Potton Public Water Supply Zone (RW50) is chloraminated and classed as

hard Hard may refer to: * Hardness, resistance of physical materials to deformation or fracture * Hard water, water with high mineral content Arts and entertainment * ''Hard'' (TV series), a French TV series * Hard (band), a Hungarian hard rock supe ...

. The supply comes from groundwater

borehole A borehole is a narrow shaft bored in the ground, either vertically or horizontally. A borehole may be constructed for many different purposes, including the extraction of water ( drilled water well and tube well), other liquids (such as petrol ...

s. There is a

waste water treatment Wastewater treatment is a process used to remove contaminants from wastewater and convert it into an effluent that can be returned to the water cycle. Once returned to the water cycle, the effluent creates an acceptable impact on the environme ...

works on Biggleswade Road and a water tower on Hatley Road. The Eastern Power Area of UK Power Networks is the

distribution network operator A distribution network operator (DNO), also known as a distribution system operator (DSO), is the operator of the electric power distribution system which delivers electricity to most end users. Each country may have many local distribution networ ...

for electricity. Cadent Gas owns and operates the area's gas distribution network. The two nearest general hospitals are

(Bedford Hospital NHS Trust) and

Lister Hospital, Stevenage The Lister Hospital is an NHS hospital based on the outskirts of Stevenage in Hertfordshire. It is operated by the East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust along with the New QEII Hospital in Welwyn Garden City. History Prior to 1972 there was ...

(East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust). Ambulance services are provided by the

East of England Ambulance Service The East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust (EEAST) is an NHS trust responsible for providing National Health Service (NHS) ambulance services in the counties of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk, in the ...

NHS Trust. Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue Service has a station on Bury Hill staffed by retained firefighters. There is a public library on the Market Square and a post office at Brook End.

Landmarks

A memorial cross to Potton men killed in the First and Second World Wars stands in the cemetery, with a brass plaque bearing the same names in the parish church.

Sport and leisure

The Henry Smith Playing Field off Brook End on the eastern edge of the town has a children's play area and skate park. Events such as Picnic in the Park and the bi-annual Party on Potton are hosted. Potton has a Non-League football club Potton United F.C., which plays at The Hollow. Potton Colts is the local youth football club with teams for children aged 6–16. Potton Town Cricket Club is also based at The Hollow on Biggleswade Road. Both Junior and Senior cricket is played. The adult section runs two teams competing in the Saracens Hertfordshire League on Saturdays and The Bedfordshire Cricket League on Sundays. The club also enter midweek competitions.

Potton History Society

There is an active History Society with a membership of over 100. It meets regularly in the Community Centre in Brook End

Religious sites

The The Parish Church of St Mary, Potton, parish church stands a short distance from the town centre on a small hill. It has a chancel, a nave, aisles and north porch, and a western tower with circular turret containing six bells. A separate cemetery was established in 1880, west of the town on the road to Sandy.

Economy

Potton had its own brewery from around 1784Bedfordshire County Council: Potton Timeline
until 1922 when it was bought by the

brewery of Newland & Nash. This company subsequently closed the brewery in Potton and sold the site to the

Co-operative Society A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomy, autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratical ...

(the original buildings remain intact). In 1998 brewing returned to Potton when the Potton Brewery Company was re-established, This subsequently closed but a new brewery is currently being planned. The town is also home to Potton Homes, who specialise in mock Tudor style property developments. A sand quarry operated by Breedon Aggregates lies off The Heath to the north-west of the town. Deepdale Trees operate an extensive tree nursery off Hatley Road and there is an adjacent poultry farm. Despite noteworthy local businesses, the town remains very much a commuter town; the majority of people in Potton commute daily to either London, via rail, or to Cambridge.

Notable people

Joel Beckett Joel Beckett (born Joel Bygraves; 27 November 1973) is an English actor, known for playing Jake Moon in the BBC soap opera ''EastEnders'' and as Lee in the original version of the comedy series ''The Office''. Born in Potton, Bedfordshire, he wa ...

(1973- ), actor, born in Potton * Sarah Dazley (1819-1843), murderer, known as the "Potton Poisoner"; lived in Potton until 1840 * Freddie Hinds (1999- ), professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...

who plays as a striker for

Championship In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match system In this system ...

club

Bristol City Bristol City Football Club is a professional football club based in Bristol, England, which compete in the , the second tier of English football. They have played their home games at Ashton Gate since moving from St John's Lane in 1904. The ...

References

External links

Potton History SocietyinPotton.com
{{authority control Towns in Bedfordshire Civil parishes in Bedfordshire Central Bedfordshire District