Roxton is a small 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

Borough of Bedford The Borough of Bedford is a unitary authority area with borough status in the ceremonial county of Bedfordshire, England. Its council is based in Bedford, its namesake and principal settlement, which is the county town of Bedfordshire. The bor ...

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 north-east 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 gives the population of Roxton as 348.

Geography

Roxton is southwest of

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 ...

, west 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 . The River

Great Ouse The River Great Ouse () is a river in England, the longest of several British rivers called "Ouse". From Syresham in Northamptonshire, the Great Ouse flows through Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Norfolk to drain into the Wa ...

forms the parish's eastern and most of its southern boundary, and the

A421 The A421 is an important road for east/west journeys across south central England. Together with the A428 road, A428, the A43 road, A43 and A34 road (England), A34, it forms the route from Cambridge through Milton Keynes to Oxford. The sectio ...

road its western. Landscape The village lies within the Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire Claylands as 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, ...

. Bedford Borough Council classifies the local landscape as the Great Ouse Clay Valley. The surrounding area is mostly arable farmland. Roxton Park is an area of grassland dotted with mature trees. There are lakes formed from old sand and gravel pits in the southeast corner of the parish by the Ouse. A sand and gravel quarry is being worked east of the Black Cat Roundabout by

Breedon Aggregates Breedon Group plc (formerly Ennstone plc) is an AIM-listed British construction materials company headquartered at Breedon on the Hill, Leicestershire, England. In 2016 Breedon became the UK's largest independent construction materials firm follo ...

. Elevation The village centre is above sea level. The whole parish is low lying and flat. Geology and soil type The village lies mainly on third 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 ...

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 ...

is to the south and west, and first and second terrace river gravel to the east.

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 ...

borders the Great Ouse. Underlying these

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 ...

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 ...

and Kellaways beds. Around the village the soil has low fertility, is freely draining and slightly acid with a

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 texture. The southwestern part of the parish has highly fertile, lime-rich loamy and clayey soils with impeded drainage. By the Great Ouse are loamy and clayey

floodplain A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river which stretches from the banks of its channel to the base of the enclosing valley walls, and which experiences flooding during periods of high discharge.Goudi ...

soils with naturally high groundwater. 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. Roxton in band 5 and 6 is adversely affected by lighting along the A1/A421 Black Cat Roundabout. The night sky is darker looking northwest. A1 road bridges The A1 northbound carriageway is carried over the Ouse by a sandstone bridge built in October 1820. Listing particulars state the bridge to be about long and wide. There are three broad, low arches built with blocks of Bramley Fall stone from a quarry near Leeds. A rounded towpath archway passes through the east abutment. A sandstone parapet rests on a projecting stone string course. Except where replaced by concrete, Bramley Fall stone copings run the length of the bridge. Inscriptions of masons can be seen on the inside face of the copings over the crown of the centre arch. Flood bridges to the east and west have seven smaller and lower segmental brick arches. A separate bridge was built for the southbound carriageway when the road was dualled in the early 1960s. Public footpaths The

Ouse Valley Way The Ouse Valley Way is a 150-mile footpath in England, following the River Great Ouse from its source near Syresham in Northamptonshire to its mouth in The Wash near King's Lynn. The path begins outside the King's Head pub in Syresham and ends o ...

passes through the village and runs alongside the Ouse to the south and east.

History

In the 1970s, a

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...

barrow cemetery in the form of five

ring ditch In archaeology, a ring ditch is a trench of circular or penannular plan, cut into bedrock. They are usually identified through aerial photography either as soil marks or cropmarks. When excavated, ring ditches are usually found to be the ploughed� ...

es was excavated prior to gravel extraction. Two urned primary cremation burials were found. The site, near to the Ouse, is now a lake. Archaeological evidence of Romano-British occupation was found in trenches dug in 2007 east of the Black Cat roundabout. Roxton is mentioned 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 ...

. The entry reads: ''Rochesdone/stone: Rhiwallon from Hugh de Beauchamp; William Speke. Mill (260 eels).'' The hamlets of Chawston and Colesden were part of Roxton civil parish until 1 April 2007, when they together with

Wyboston Wyboston is a village in the English county of Bedfordshire,adjacent to the town of St Neots, on the Cambridgeshire border. The eastern part of the village is dominated by the A1 Great North Road. Approaching the Black Cat Roundabout from the B ...

(part of Roxton parish from 1965) separated to form a new civil parish.

Governance

Roxton Parish Council has seven elected members and meets bi-monthly in the parish hall. Roxton is part of Wyboston ward for elections to the

Unitary Authority. Prior to 1894, Roxton was administered as part of the Barford Hundred. From 1894 until 1974 the village was in

Bedford Rural District Bedford Rural District was a rural district in Bedfordshire, England from 1894 to 1974. It surrounded but did not include the Municipal Borough of Bedford and Kempston Urban District. Evolution The district had its origins in the Bedford Rur ...

and since 1974 in Bedford Borough. The village was in Bedford parliamentary constituency until 1997. It is now part of

North East Bedfordshire North East Bedfordshire is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom since 2019 by Richard Fuller, of the Conservative Party. Constituency profile This is a mainly rural, professional area, ...

Village facilities

The ''Royal Oak'' public house has been licensed since at least 1819. A post office is in a courtyard to the rear. Roxton CE

Academy An academy ( Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy ...

caters for up to 90 girls and boys aged from 3 to 11 years and is governed locally under the auspices of The Diocese of St Albans Multi-Academy Trust. The school buildings date from 1963. Roxton Garden Centre on Bedford Road includes a restaurant and maze.

Public transport

Roxton is served by the regional Stagecoach X5 bus route; east to St Neots and Cambridge and west to Bedford,

Milton Keynes Milton Keynes ( ) is a city and the largest settlement in Buckinghamshire, England, about north-west of London. At the 2021 Census, the population of its urban area was over . The River Great Ouse forms its northern boundary; a tributary ...

and

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 ...

. The nearest railway stations are Sandy and

Church and chapel

The

Grade II* listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

Parish Church of St Mary Magdalene dates from the 14th century and is built of rich brown cobblestones with ashlar dressings and slate roofs. The 15th century western tower is single–stage with northeast and southwest buttresses to an embattled parapet. There is a ring of five bells; the oldest are dated 1591 and 1607. The church is in the Biggleswade Deanery and the

Diocese of St Albans The Diocese of St Albans forms part of the Province of Canterbury in England and is part of the wider Church of England, in turn part of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The diocese is home to more than 1.6 million people and comprises the hi ...

. Along with the ecclesiastical parishes of Blunham, Great Barford and Tempsford with Little Barford, Roxton is part of the ''Riversmeet

Benefice A benefice () or living is a reward received in exchange for services rendered and as a retainer for future services. The Roman Empire used the Latin term as a benefit to an individual from the Empire for services rendered. Its use was adopted by ...

''.

Roxton Congregational Chapel Geograph-2583860-by-Dennis-simpson

The Roxton Congregational Chapel, also Grade II* listed, originates from 1808, when meetings were held in a barn. The chapel was formerly established in 1822 and the barn converted into a thatched

Cottage orné Cottage orné () dates back to a movement of "rustic" stylised cottages of the late 18th and early 19th centuries during the Romantic movement, when some sought to discover a more natural way of living as opposed to the formality of the preceding ...

style chapel. In the 1830s two wings were added; one for the vestry and the other for the village school and Sunday School. The chapel is an independent Christian church affiliated to the

Congregational Federation The Congregational Federation is a small Christian denomination in Great Britain comprising 235 congregations, down from 294 in April 2014. The Federation brings together Congregational churches, and provides support and guidance to member chur ...

. The Church had a

pastor A pastor (abbreviated as "Pr" or "Ptr" , or "Ps" ) is the leader of a Christian congregation who also gives advice and counsel to people from the community or congregation. In Lutheranism, Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy and ...

until at least 1947 but nowadays external preachers come from a variety of denominations. Administration of the church is by three, annually elected, voluntary

deacon A deacon is a member of the diaconate, an office in Christian churches that is generally associated with service of some kind, but which varies among theological and denominational traditions. Major Christian churches, such as the Catholic Churc ...

s. Decision–making is by Church members through the Church meeting.

Community events

Roxton Flower Show is held annually in August. According to the Parish Council website the 2019 show was the 65th such event.

Notable people

Wayne Larkins Wayne Larkins (born 22 November 1953) is an English former cricketer, who represented Northamptonshire, Durham and Bedfordshire as an opening batsman throughout his career. He was selected to play for England as Graham Gooch's opening partner ...

, a former Northamptonshire and England cricketer was born in Roxton.

References

External links

Roxton Parish Council

Royal Oak Pub, Roxton

Roxton Garden Centre

Roxton V.A. Church of England Lower School
{{authority control Villages in Bedfordshire Civil parishes in Bedfordshire Borough of Bedford