Knotting, Bedfordshire

Knotting Green is a hamlet located in the Borough of Bedford of Bedfordshire, England. It is in the civil parish of Knotting and Souldrop. The settlement is close to Knotting, Souldrop and Riseley. The nearest town to Knotting Green is Rushden in Northamptonshire.

Knotting and Souldrop is a civil parish in the Borough of Bedford in the county of Bedfordshire, England.The two parishes of Knotting and Souldrop were combined in 1934. Until 1974 the parish formed part of Bedford Rural District.

Church of St Margaret (also known as the Church of St Margaret of Antioch) is a Grade I listed church in Knotting, Bedfordshire, England. It became a listed building on 13 July 1964. The church was originally built in the 12th century. It underwent extensive renovation in the late 2000s. The building, which features a west tower, a nave, a chancel and a south aisle, is constructed of limestone rubble and has a clay-tiled roof. The tower is of a much later date than the rest of the building. It has datestone of 1615 in its parapet. The chancel was rebuilt in the 13th century.The church's benches date from the 16th and 17th centuries.

Souldrop is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Knotting and Souldrop, in the Bedford district, in the ceremonial county of Bedfordshire, England, located near the border with Northamptonshire. Nearby places are, Sharnbrook, Podington, Odell, Melchbourne, Yelden, Knotting, and Newton Bromswold and Rushden over the border in Northamptonshire. In 1931 the parish had a population of 161. On 1 April 1934 the parish was abolished and merged with Knotting to form "Knotting and Souldrop".The schools within the Souldrop catchment are Sharnbrook Primary and Sharnbrook Academy in Sharnbrook. Sharnbrook Summit nature reserve is located near the village.

Sharnbrook railway station was opened in 1857 by the Midland Railway to serve the village of Sharnbrook in Bedfordshire, England. It was on the Midland's extension from Leicester to Bedford and Hitchin. It was situated near to Sharnbrook Summit. Here, originally there was a 1 in 119 gradient from the south taking the line to 340 feet above sea level. Around 1880, the line was quadrupled, with the new goods tracks taken through 1,800 yd (1,600 m) long Sharnbrook Tunnel. Following this, in 1884, a long curve, the Wymington Deviation allowed the ruling gradient on the slow/goods lines to be reduced to 1 in 200.It closed in 1960 and the station buildings were subsequently demolished. The slow/goods lines were singled and put up to passenger standard in 1987. As of 2007 they see one train a day plus occasional engineering diversions, such as on the weekend 6/7 May 2007. Quadruple track was restored between Sharnbrook Junction and Kettering South Junction in 2020; electrification was in progress as at September, 2020. The existing Down Slow remains signalled for bi-directional use; the Up Slow is signalled for use in that direction only.

Church of St Peter is a Grade I listed church in Sharnbrook, Bedfordshire, England. It became a listed building on 13 July 1964. The parish church is dedicated to Saint Peter. It is of Gothic architecture style, with a tower and spire. Its interior is decorated with monuments. A hand-tinted aquatint of 'Sharnbrook Church, Bedfordshire' was drawn, engraved and published by Thomas Fisher on November 4, 1812.

Newton Bromswold is a village and civil parish about 1.9 miles (3.1 km) east of Rushden in North Northamptonshire, England, adjacent to the border with Bedfordshire. At the 2001 census the parish's population was 62 people in 27 households. The population remained less than 100 at the 2011 Census and is included in the town of Rushden. It is near the villages of Wymington, Chelveston, Knotting, Knotting Green, Yelden and Melchbourne. There is a pub and a small church. The village takes its name from the forest which once stood where the village is today, called Bruneswald Forest. The villages name means 'New farm/settlement'. Bromswold, 'Brun's forest', was an area of woodland on the Huntingdonshire and Northamptonshire border.

Sharnbrook is a village and civil parish located in the Borough of Bedford in Bedfordshire, England, situated around 7 miles (11 km) north-west of Bedford town centre. The settlement was recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as a parish within the Hundred of Willey but was probably first developed in Saxon times. The oldest surviving building, St Peter's Church, is Norman. The name is believed to be derived from the Anglo Saxon word sharn meaning dung. Many of the older buildings in the village are constructed of the local oolitic limestone, also used in other traditional north Bedfordshire settlements. Situated just north of a loop in the River Great Ouse and almost due north of Bedford, the village has developed as a ribbon-settlement running south-east to north-west, with the core of the community clustered at the north-western end.

Sharnbrook Academy, formerly Sharnbrook Upper School until 2017, is a large, rural academy school located in Sharnbrook, a village in the English county of Bedfordshire. Built in 1975, the school now has over 1900 students and around 300 staff, and includes a large sixth form founded in 1978 of around 650 students.

Yelden or Yielden is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Melchbourne and Yielden, in the Bedford district, in the ceremonial county of Bedfordshire, England, near the borders with Northamptonshire and Cambridgeshire. It lies on the River Til which feeds into the Great Ouse valley and is about 70 m (230 ft) above sea level. It is approximately 14 miles (23 km) north of Bedford, 3.75 miles (6.04 km) south-east of Higham Ferrers and 6.75 miles (10.86 km) west of Kimbolton and is in the Hundred of Stodden. The countryside around the village rises to about 90 m (300 ft) above sea level, is generally open and rolling in nature and is predominantly used for agricultural purposes. The centre piece of the village is the Castle Mound or Yielden Castle the site of a Norman motte-and-bailey castle. This is now a complex of grassed over earthworks dominated by a central mound. Other notable features include the church of St Mary, a Wesleyan Chapel built in 1884, the Chequers Public House (Closed since December 2016) and the Yelden Village Hall. It has a present population of roughly between 150 and 200 adults and between 50 and 100 children living in about 90 residences. Yelden has its own book under the title Yelden Past and Present produced by the Yelden Parish Study Group that was first printed in 1972. It has since been updated and reprinted in 2001 and is the definitive source of historical information about the village. Much of the information in this article has been made with reference to this publication. Neighbouring villages include Melchbourne, Newton Bromswold, Upper Dean and Shelton.

Felmersham is a small village and civil parish in the Borough of Bedford in Bedfordshire, England, on the River Great Ouse, about 7 miles (11 km) north west of Bedford. As a civil parish, it includes the hamlet of Radwell, and is sometimes known as Felmersham with Radwell, and has a population of about 800, and is circumscribed by the Great Ouse on the north, east and south. Other nearby places are Sharnbrook, Odell, Pavenham and Milton Ernest. Felmersham with Radwell was recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as a parish within the Hundred of Willey. John de Burnham, later Lord High Treasurer of Ireland, was parish priest here in the 1330s. The Church of St Mary is located in the village. The village gave its name to HMS Felmersham, a Ham class minesweeper. Felmersham has no shop or Post Office but does have one public house, The Sun. Two previous pubs closed in the 1990s; The Plough in 1991 and The Six Ringers in 1995. Felmersham supports a primary school. In 2017, Pinchmill Lower School changed to Pinchmill Primary School when the local education system changed from three tier to two tier. The school caters for children aged 5–11 (previous to 2017 it was 5–9). After leaving, most children move on to Sharnbrook Academy. The school building was opened in 1974 and took its name from the Pinchmill Islands in Sharnbrook. Felmersham Gravel Pits nature reserve is North of the village, just over the River Great Ouse. It is understood that the pits were created by extracting sand and gravel to build local airfields in World War Two.

Felmersham Gravel Pits is a 21.6-hectare (53-acre) Site of Special Scientific Interest between the villages of Felmersham and Sharnbrook in Bedfordshire. It was notified under Section 28 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 in 1986 and the local planning authority is Bedford Borough Council. The site is managed by the Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire.The site has flooded gravel pits which were worked until about 1945. Other habitats are neutral grassland, scrub and broadleaved woodland. It is one of the best sites in Bedfordshire for dragonflies and damselflies.The road called Causeway goes through the reserve, which is open at all times.