Sutton is a rural 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

Central Bedfordshire Central Bedfordshire is a Districts of England, local government district in the ceremonial county of Bedfordshire, England. It is administered by Central Bedfordshire Council, a Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority. It was created ...

district of

Bedfordshire Bedfordshire (; abbreviated ''Beds'') is a Ceremonial County, ceremonial county in the East of England. It is bordered by Northamptonshire to the north, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Hertfordshire to the south and the south-east, and Buckin ...

, England. It lies east of

Bedford Bedford is a market town in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 Census, the population was 106,940. Bedford is the county town of Bedfordshire and seat of the Borough of Bedford local government district. Bedford was founded at a ford (crossin ...

. At the 2001 Census, its population was 299. Main features are the

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#Bridg ...

over the Potton Brook, the adjacent ford, and the Grade I listed All Saints' Parish Church.

Geography

Sutton is just over south of Potton, and north-east 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, This figur ...

. Landscape

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, ...

has designated the area as part of The Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire Claylands (NCA 88). Central Bedfordshire Council has classified the local landscape as Dunton Clay Vale. Not technically a 'vale', it is used here to mean a transitional landscape between a valley and a plateau. Medium to large fields of cereal crops dominate the south and east of the parish. The limited woodland cover and incomplete or unhedged roads reveal an open, mostly flat or gently sloping landscape. To the west alongside the road to Deepdale are the woodlands of Millhouse Fen and Waterloo Wood, and a more recent plantation is north of the village at Pegnut Hill. Elevation The village centre is about above sea level. The land falls to at the parish's south-western boundary near Biggleswade Common and rises to at its north-western corner. Soil and geology The soils of the parish are of four types. The lower lying land to the south-west and around Potton Brook is loamy and sandy with naturally high groundwater and a peaty surface and texture. The higher land alongside the B1040 Biggleswade Road and on to the golf courses has a sandy texture and is freely draining and slightly acid. To the north of the village are freely draining, slightly acid loamy soils. The village centre and areas to the south and east have lime-rich loamy and clayey soils with impeded drainage. The geology of the south-west of the parish and around Potton Brook is

alluvium Alluvium (, ) 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. Alluvium is also sometimes called alluvial deposit. Alluvium is ...

. Western and northern areas are Lower Greensand. To the south is

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 ...

and in the east is a belt 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 Fo ...

. The night sky and light pollution The

Campaign to Protect Rural England Campaign or The Campaign may refer to: Types of campaigns * Campaign, in agriculture, the period during which sugar beet A sugar beet is a plant whose root contains a high concentration of sucrose and that is grown commercially for sugar produ ...

(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. Sutton is in bands 3 and 4, with darker sky looking eastwards but brighter to the west.

History

The first written record of the village is its listing 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 ...

. Spelt ''Sudtone'' and ''Suttone'' the name is thought to mean "south farm". Sutton Castle was built c1220, though now an oval

motte A motte-and-bailey castle is a European fortification with a wooden or stone keep situated on a raised area of ground called a motte, accompanied by a walled courtyard, or Bailey (castle), bailey, surrounded by a protective Rampart (fortificati ...

is all that remains. Unusually, the castle is a long way from the village and church. John O Gaunts Hill Sutton 2021-01

John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster (6 March 1340 – 3 February 1399), was an English royal prince, military leader and statesman. He was the fourth son (third surviving) of King Edward III of England, and the father of King Henry IV. Because ...

, son of

King Edward III Edward III (13 November 1312 – 21 June 1377), also known as Edward of Windsor before his accession, was King of England from January 1327 until his death in 1377. He is noted for his military success and for restoring royal authority after t ...

, held the manor of Sutton in the 14th century. A large earthen mound surrounded by a moat, in Sutton Park, is said to be the site of his manor house. It is now the 17th green of the John O'Gaunt golf course. Local tradition tells that the village was formerly hereabout but later relocated south to its present site. Sutton was the birthplace of General

John Burgoyne General (United Kingdom), General John "Gentleman Johnny" Burgoyne (24 February 1722 – 4 August 1792) was a British Army officer, playwright and politician who sat in the House of Commons of Great Britain from 1761 to 1792. He first saw acti ...

the British army officer, politician and dramatist best known for his role in the

American War of Independence The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which Am ...

. He lived with his family at Sutton Park. In 1741, the Sutton Enclosure Act was passed; the first Enclosure Act in Bedfordshire. Local Enclosure Acts allowed the major landowners in the area to reorganise their widely separated landholdings. This produced a larger estate for the Burgoynes. Sutton Park House was destroyed by a fire in 1825. It was subsequently re-designed in 1876. There are monuments to the Burgoynes in All Saints Church. The monument to Sir Roger, who died in 1679, is by

Grinling Gibbons Grinling Gibbons (4 April 1648 – 3 August 1721) was an Anglo-Dutch sculptor and wood carver known for his work in England, including Windsor Castle, the Royal Hospital Chelsea and Hampton Court Palace, St Paul's Cathedral and other London church ...

. The tomb of John Burgoyne (d.1709) is by Edward Stanton. The John O'Gaunt Public House was licensed in 1835 and created from three 18th-century

thatch Thatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, Phragmites, water reed, Cyperaceae, sedge (''Cladium mariscus''), Juncus, rushes, Calluna, heather, or palm branches, layering the vegetation so as to shed water away fr ...

ed cottages. The Ordnance Survey map of 1900 shows a number of allotments in and to the east of the village centre.

Packhorse bridge and ford

The

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#Bridg ...

alongside the ford is a 13th-century double arched pedestrian bridge over Potton Brook, a tributary of the River Ivel. The bridge built from local

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

is thought to be the only surviving one of its type in Bedfordshire. One source states that it was situated on an important wool trade route to the towns of

and

Dunstable Dunstable ( ) is a market town and civil parish in Bedfordshire, England, east of the Chiltern Hills, north of London. There are several steep chalk escarpments, most noticeable when approaching Dunstable from the north. Dunstable is the fou ...

. However, another source disputes this and is of the opinion that the bridge's origins lie with the creation of Sutton Park and the relocation of the village. Previously in private hands, Bedfordshire County Council assumed responsibility for the bridge in 1941. Repairs carried out in 1986 earned the council a Civic Trust award in 1988.

All Saints' parish church

The

Church of England parish church A parish church in the Church of England is the church which acts as the religious centre for the people within each Church of England parish (the smallest and most basic Church of England administrative unit; since the 19th century sometimes ...

of All Saints has a barrel organ and was once under the control of the scandalous Reverend Edward Drax Free. A detailed study of the architecture was taken in 2003 and can be read a
English Church Architecture

Public services

Sutton is in the Potton Public Water Supply Zone (RW50). The water supplied by

Anglian Water Anglian Water Services Limited 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 ...

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 petr ...

s and is chloraminated and classed as hard. 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 netwo ...

for electricity. There is no natural gas supply. The two nearest general hospitals are

(Bedford Hospital NHS Trust) and Lister Hospital, Stevenage (East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust). Ambulance services are provided by the East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust. Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue Service and Bedfordshire Police cover the parish. There is a public library in Potton.

Public transport

Centrebus (South) runs bus route no. 190 south to

(journey time 14 minutes) and north to Potton, Gamlingay, Everton and Sandy (journey time 35 minutes). The service is normally two hourly, daytime only, Monday to Saturday. The Ivel Sprinter buses run weekly services 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 ...

(no. 193) and

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

(no. 3). The nearest railway station is

Governance

Sutton Parish Council holds bi-monthly meetings in the village hall. There are seven elected councillors. Sutton is part of Potton ward for elections to the

Unitary Authority. Prior to 1894, Sutton was administered as part of the Hundred of Biggleswade. From 1894 until 1974 the village was in Biggleswade Rural District and from 1974 to 2009 in Mid Bedfordshire District. Wrestlingworth was in the Mid Bedfordshire parliamentary constituency until 1997. Now in North East Bedfordshire, the elected member is Richard Fuller of the Conservative Party.

Community events

A duck race along Potton Brook takes place annually in the summer. Over a thousand plastic ducks were launched in 2017. Tickets are bought to sponsor a duck and cash prizes awarded for the winning, second and third ducks to cross the finishing line. The remaining proceeds are shared between Sutton Village Hall and All Saints' Church. A flower festival is held in All Saints' Church on the weekend of the duck race.

Schools

Sutton V.A. Lower School was opened in 1870. It caters for 4 to 9 year olds and has strong links to All Saints’ Church. OneSchool, Biggleswade, which opened in 2014 also lies within the parish.

John O'Gaunt Golf Club

The John O'Gaunt Golf Club comprises two 18-hole courses; the original John O'Gaunt and the later Carthagena. The club was established in 1948 in Sutton Park. The clubhouse dates from 1856.

References

External links

Sutton School

Sutton Village hall

Sutton Parish Neighbourhood Plan

John O'Gaunt Golf Club

All Saints Church
{{authority control Civil parishes in Bedfordshire Villages in Bedfordshire Central Bedfordshire District