Spotlight on Peterborough Villages – Tortoise Property Blog

The Peterborough area is rich in suburbs as the city area is ever expanding. With it’s possibility for commuting into Cambridge & London. It makes Peterborough a great commuters city with the added bonus that there is plenty of opportunity to live outside the city centre itself if a slightly quieter lifestyle is more to your liking.

Wansford

Wansford, sometimes Wansford-in-England is a village just off the Great North Road (A1) near Peterborough and eight miles south of Stamford. Wansford station, 1.5 miles S.E. of the centre of the village, is the home of the Nene Valley Railway.

The Haycock hotel, a coaching inn, is situated to the south of the stone bridge over the River Nene.
Wansford is actually two separate villages under different parish councils. Wansford Parish Council, within the area of Peterborough Unitary Authority, comprises the village north of, and including, Wansford Old Bridge.

The village to the south of Wansford Old Bridge (The Haycock side) is represented by Stibbington Parish Council and comes under Huntingdonshire District Council. Wansford station is actually in Stibbington parish. There is a GP surgery, Wansford and Kings Cliffe Practice on Yarwell Road, to the north of the river.

According to local folklore, the name Wansford-in-England comes from the tale of a local man who fell asleep on a hayrick and upon awakening found himself floating down the River Nene. He asked a traveller on the riverbank where he was, and upon hearing the reply “Wansford”, asked, “Wansford in England?”. The name stuck.

Thorney

Thorney is a village about 8 miles (13 km) east of Peterborough in the City of Peterborough unitary authority, England, on the A47. Historically it was part of the Isle of Ely, which was considered part of Cambridgeshire but was transferred into the former county of Huntingdon and Peterborough and remained part of the Peterborough district into the transfer to Cambridgeshire and when it became a unitary authority in 1998.

Much of the village was built at the command of the Dukes of Bedford, who wished to have a healthy place in which their estate workers could live. In the mid 19th century many buildings were added to the designs of the architect S.S. Teulon, himself a descendant of Huguenots. This explains the uniformity of the housing in the original centre of Thorney.

Kings Cliffe

Kings Cliffe is a village and civil parish on Willow Brook, a tributary of the River Nene, about 9 miles (14 km) north-east of Corby in East Northamptonshire. The parish adjoins the county boundary with the City of Peterborough and the village is about 12 miles (19 km) west of the city centre. The village is not far from the boundary with Lincolnshire and about 6 miles (10 km) south of Stamford.

The Church of England parish church of All Saints has a central tower that is Norman, with late 13th century upper parts and broach spire. The nave has a Decorated Gothic west window and there are north and south aisles with 14th century arcades. The font is also 14th century. Later features are the Perpendicular Gothic clerestory, roof and remodelling of the north and south arches supporting the tower. Inside the church is a monument erected in 1623 to the Thorpe family, whose descendant John Thorpe (1565–1655) was a notable Elizabethan and Jacobean architect.

Alwalton

Alwalton is a village in Huntingdonshire (now part of Cambridgeshire) in the United Kingdom, five miles (8 km) to the west of the city of Peterborough.

The village lies north west of Yaxley, overlooking the southern bank of the River Nene and close to the line of Ermine Street or the A1 road. Alwalton is a conservation area with a number of listed buildings, the most important of which are the Norman Church of St Andrew’s and the Elizabethan Manor House. Alwalton Hall was built for the 4th Earl Fitzwilliam.

The East of England Showground lies to the south of the village. The 240-acre (0.97 km²) site is used for shows and commercial exhibitions. Until 2012 it was the home each June for the East of England Show.

Sir Henry Royce (27 March 1863 to 22 April 1933), the co founder of Rolls-Royce, was born in the village and his ashes were buried in St Andrew’s Church where a plaque has been placed on the wall as well on a spot on the floor, beneath which his ashes were buried in an urn.

Sawtry

Sawtry is just west of the Fens, halfway between the city of Peterborough and the town of Huntingdon. Other nearby villages include Folksworth, Alconbury, Holme, Yaxley, and Stilton. Being situated in close proximity to the A1(M), it is a sought-after location for commuters. It is approximately six miles north of the A14, and a fifty-minute car drive from both Stansted Airport and Luton Airport.

Sawtry has two public houses: The Bell and The Greystones. It also has an Ex-Services and Working Men’s Club. It has anInfant school and a Junior school; and a Community college which educates many young people from nearby villages as well as Sawtry itself.

Folksworth

Folksworth is a small village just off the A1(M), about 5 miles southwest of Peterborough, England. Folksworth has a village hall, a church (St Helens) and a small primary school. There is also a preschool which operates 3 days per week in the village hall. The village’s only pub (The Fox), closed down in 2013 but there local people are campaigning to get it re-opened. Folksworth also has a playing field called Folksworth Fun Park with a cricket wicket, goalposts and lots of play equipment for children. It is part of the civil parish of Folksworth and Washingley, this is in the district (former county) of Huntingdonshire in the county of Cambridgeshire.

Folksworth & Washingley Parish Council meets at the village hall on the 3rd Tuesday of the month at 7.20pm.

St Helen’s Church (Church of England) in Morborne Road was first built in 1150 AD. The church was restored in 1850 when the chancel was entirely rebuilt and the vestry added, the north wall of the nave largely rebuilt, and a bell-cote built on the west gable. Services are held each Sunday morning in the church at 11.00 am (other than the second Sunday which is at 9.30 am), except the first Sunday in the month when there is a Family service which is held in the school hall.

Warmington

Warmington is a village and civil parish in East Northamptonshire, England with a population of 874 (as of the 2001 census).

It is 2½ miles east of the town of Oundle near the Cambridgeshire border and is 10 miles south west of the city of Peterborough. It has a large 13th-century church, and fine watermill, manor house and dovecote. Most of the houses, however, were built in the 1960s and 1970s. A large estate of private homes has been added since the turn of the millennium increasing the size of the village by around 30%. Warmington is a working, functional village with some impressive old stone buildings which are considered very attractive. The Nene Way footpath runs through the village and is well signposted.

Warmington has a small primary school that in 1980 had around 25 pupils in total but has since grown considerably over the years. There is a village shop and post office, a butcher’s, a garage and a pub, The Red Lion which is the site of the annual fireworks party for villagers and visitors and a village hall which hosts social events, groups and clubs for all ages. The nearest junior and secondary schools are in Oundle.

The oldest part of Warmington village is thought to be an area named Eaglethorpe, a small hamlet adjacent to the River Nene. A 1500 year old skeleton was found during an archeological dig in Eaglethorpe during the completion of the A605 bypass in 2002.

Warmington has an old water mill which functioned until the mid twentieth century, which has been restored and now functions as a retail outlet for the ceramic tile company, Fired Earth. In the late 1990s a fire destroyed the roof and much of the timber work in the building. Residents and visitors may walk from Warmington across the flood plains to Fotheringhay, a historic medieval village, and to the Fotheringhay castle site where Mary, Queen of Scots, was executed in 1587 andRichard III was born in 1452.

There was a village police constable in a designated police house up until the late 1980s. Patrols are now made intermittently via Oundle constabulary who provide aPCSO (Police Community Support Officer) and local residents are advised by their local Neighbourhood Watch members.

The village can be accessed by a single carriageway main road, the A605, or winding country lanes leading from villages such as Morborne and Ashton via the steep ‘Cooke’s Hill named after the farmers there in the 1960s and previously known as Broadgate Hill.

The farmers fields that encircle the village and give its rural feel, are now mostly owned by the Proby family in nearby Elton village – who are based at Elton Hall. As little ago as the 1960s there were as many as 6 local farmers resident in the village employing villagers including John and David Simpson, Don Cooke, and Messrs.Kirby, Northern and Horsefield.

In the village there are 28 listed buildings, including the Mill and the Dovecote.

Walton

Walton is a residential area and electoral ward of the city of Peterborough, Cambridgeshire in the United Kingdom. Manufacturers of industrial machinery, Peter Brotherhood Limited, relocated here from London in 1906.

Walton County Infant and Junior schools were amalgamated in September 2007 to form a single Primary School; following the closure of Walton Comprehensive School in July 2007, secondary pupils attend The Voyager School which opened in September 2007.

As estate agents in Peterborough we love the village & suburb life as it has real heart and soul, and many people that live in these areas have done so for years. They have all you need within walking distance.

Contact us on 01733 592020 to see how our professional Relationship Managers can help you buy, rent, sell or let in these villages in Peterborough. Alternatively take a look at our available properties at www.tortoiseproperty.co.uk

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