Ripple 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. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

in the county of

Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It is bordered by Shropshire, Staffordshire, and the West Midlands (county), West ...

, England. Ripple is one of the most southerly parishes in the county and is situated on the

A38 road The A38, parts of which are known as Devon Expressway, Bristol Road and Gloucester Road, Bristol, Gloucester Road, is a major A-class trunk road in England. The road runs from Bodmin in Cornwall to Mansfield in Nottinghamshire. It is long, mak ...

with the

River Severn The River Severn (, ), at long, is the longest river in Great Britain. It is also the river with the most voluminous flow of water by far in all of England and Wales, with an average flow rate of at Apperley, Gloucestershire. It rises in t ...

as its western boundary. Besides Ripple, the parish contains the settlements of Holly Green, The Grove,

Naunton Naunton is a village in Gloucestershire, England. It lies on the River Windrush in the Cotswolds, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, area of outstanding natural beauty. Stow-on-the-Wold is about 6 miles to the east. Community The populati ...

, Ryall, Saxon's Lode, and Uckinghall. It had a combined population of 1,799 at the 2011 census.

History

Ripple is mentioned in passing 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 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

of 1086, under the entry of

Upton upon Severn Upton-upon-Severn (or Upton on Severn, etc. and locally simply Upton) is a small riverside town and civil parish in the Malvern Hills District of Worcestershire, England. Lying on the A4104 (formerly A440), the 2021 census recorded a population ...

, as being "also held by the Bishop of Worcester". During the

English Civil War The English Civil War or Great Rebellion was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Cavaliers, Royalists and Roundhead, Parliamentarians in the Kingdom of England from 1642 to 1651. Part of the wider 1639 to 1653 Wars of th ...

Ripple was the site of a Royalist victory, the Battle of Ripple Field, on 13 April 1643. After an initial Parliamentarian attack by cavalry which was repulsed, the Parliamentarians retreated back into the village of Ripple. After a brief stand, they were eventually routed by the royalist cavalry of Prince Maurice (

Maurice of the Palatinate Maurice, Prince Palatine of the Rhine KG (16 January 1621 – 1 September 1652) was the fourth son of Frederick V, Elector Palatine and Princess Elizabeth, daughter of King James VI and I and Anne of Denmark. Life Maurice was present with h ...

). St Mary's Church is a Grade I listed building with "exceptional" 15th-century stalls with 16 carved

misericord A misericord (sometimes named mercy seat, like the biblical object) is a small wooden structure formed on the underside of a folding seat in a church which, when the seat is folded up, is intended to act as a shelf to support a person in a p ...

Saxon's Lode

At Saxon's Lode, a hamlet approximately north-west of Ripple village, there is archaeological evidence of human activity dating back to the

Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

, including a

Romano-British The Romano-British culture arose in Britain under the Roman Empire following the Roman conquest in AD 43 and the creation of the province of Britannia. It arose as a fusion of the imported Roman culture with that of the indigenous Britons, ...

farmstead and an

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...

settlement. The Anglo-Saxon settlement is significant for being the most westerly of its type yet discovered in Great Britain.

Railways

Ripple railway station was on the Tewkesbury and Malvern Railway on the

Midland Railway The Midland Railway (MR) was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1844 in rail transport, 1844. The Midland was one of the largest railway companies in Britain in the early 20th century, and the largest employer in Derby, where it had ...

(later LMS) branch line from

Ashchurch Ashchurch is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Ashchurch Rural, in the Tewkesbury district, in the county of Gloucestershire, England, east of the town of Tewkesbury, southwest of Evesham, north of Cheltenham, north-n ...

Great Malvern Great Malvern is an area of the civil parish of Malvern, Worcestershire, Malvern, in the Malvern Hills District, Malvern Hills district, in the county of Worcestershire, England. It lies at the foot of the Malvern Hills, a designated Area of O ...

, which ran via

Tewkesbury Tewkesbury ( ) is a market town and civil parish in the north of Gloucestershire, England. The town grew following the construction of Tewkesbury Abbey in the twelfth century and played a significant role in the Wars of the Roses. It stands at ...

, Ripple, Upton-upon-Severn and Malvern Wells. This was opened from Ashchurch as far as Tewkesbury on 21 July 1840 and extended to Malvern on 16 May 1864. It was closed beyond Upton-on-Severn railway station on 1 December 1952 and the rest (including Ripple) on 14 August 1961. Ripple station still stands, attractively restored, and is now a private house.

Governance

Ripple is part of the

West Worcestershire West Worcestershire is a constituency in Worcestershire represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2010 by Harriett Baldwin, a Conservative. The constituency first existed from 1832 to 1885, formally known as the Western Div ...

constituency of the

Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, and may also legislate for the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace ...

. It forms part of the Coome

ward Ward may refer to: Division or unit * Hospital ward, a hospital division, floor, or room set aside for a particular class or group of patients, for example the psychiatric ward * Prison ward, a division of a penal institution such as a pris ...

of Worcestershire County Council, which elects one councillor. It is part of the Upton and Ripple

Malvern Hills District Council Malvern or Malverne may refer to: Places Australia * Malvern, South Australia, a suburb of Adelaide * Malvern, Victoria, a suburb of Melbourne ** Malvern railway station, Melbourne * City of Malvern, a former local government area near Melbourn ...

, and elects two members to the council; the ward consists of the parishes of Upton upon Severn, Ripple,

Earls Croome Earl's Croome is a village and civil parish in the Malvern Hills District in the county of Worcestershire, England. It had a population of 243 in 2021. History The village is mentioned in the Domesday Book, 1086, as ''Crumba''. The first part ...

and Hill Croome.Malvern Hills District Council
Retrieved 30 June 2016

References

External links