Drigg is a village situated in the

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of Parish (administrative division), administrative parish used for Local government in England, local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below district ...

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 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 de ...

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 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. ...

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

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 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 Holmrook which takes the A595 road over the river. The

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

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 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 parapet ...

in the Drigg Holmes which does not take vehicles. Drigg railway station 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. 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 A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house ...

. 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 (EAE ...

, 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 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 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 weap ...

, 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 nu ...

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