St Andrew's Church, Woodwalton

Woodwalton Castle was a small motte and bailey castle at Church End, the northern end of the parish of Woodwalton, Huntingdonshire. Located on a natural hillock, the earthworks of the castle still remain, with an outer moat enclosing a circular bailey with a central motte. A large dyke, apparently ancient, runs from the outer moat in a north-easterly direction. The site is a scheduled monument. It is unknown who built the castle or when it was constructed. It may have been erected by the de Bolbec family who held the manor of Woodwalton between 1086 and 1134, or by Ramsey Abbey which was granted the manor by Walter de Bolbec in 1134. Alternatively, it may have been built during The Anarchy, either by the sons of Aubrey de Senlis, who seized Woodwalton in 1143–4, or by Ernald, illegitimate son of Geoffrey de Mandeville, who moved his forces from Ramsey to Woodwalton after the death of his father in 1144.The existence of fishponds implies that the castle outlived the period of military conflict and developed as a residence controlling the northern part of the parish. The main settlement of Woodwalton village lies some 2 km to the south, and St Andrew's Church stands in isolation 600m south of the castle, possibly to serve both settlements.

Woodwalton Marsh is a 0.8-hectare (2.0-acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest north-east of Woodwalton in Cambridgeshire. It is managed by the Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire.This grassland on calcareous clay has diverse flora, including red fescue, quaking grass, knapweed, cowslip, pepper saxifrage, green-winged orchid and the rare sulphur clover. There is also a wide variety of butterflies.There is access from New Road.

Wood Walton is a village and civil parish in Cambridgeshire, England. Wood Walton lies approximately 6 miles (10 km) north of Huntingdon and just east of the A1. Wood Walton is situated within Huntingdonshire which is a non-metropolitan district of Cambridgeshire as well as being a historic county of England. The civil parish of Wood Walton is spread over a wide area, the main village dissected by the East Coast Main Line. To the north of the village in the area known as "Church End" stands the (now redundant) parish church of St Andrew, clearly visible from passing trains. The church was listed as one of Songs of Praise's favourite churches. The church dates from around 1200 and is layered in history: the south aisle was added in 1250, a clerestory was added in the 16th century, and it received a major remodelling in the 1850s. It is now in the keeping of the Friends of Friendless Churches.Further north are the earthworks of Woodwalton Castle, a motte-and-bailey castle which formerly held the manor of the parish. In 1886 a hoard of Roman coins was dug up in the parish. The village stands at the edge of Woodwalton Fen, an area of special scientific interest.

Sawtry Abbey was a Cistercian abbey located between Sawtry and Woodwalton in Cambridgeshire, England. The abbey was founded in 1147 by Simon II de Senlis, Earl of Northampton, who was the grandson of Earl Waltheof and Judith, the niece of William the Conqueror who held the manor when the Domesday Survey was compiled. It is the only Cistercian abbey in the county.A colony of monks from Wardon Abbey in Bedfordshire joined the new monastery, which was founded as an independent abbey. Due to its proximity to other monasteries, disputes over tithes and land with the abbots of Ramsey and Thorney often occurred during the 13th century.During the 14th century, the abbot of Sawtry was often recorded as being in debt, although the exact cause is unknown. Indeed, very few documents relating to the abbey survive. The abbey was worth less than £200 a year, and at the Dissolution of the Monasteries the whole establishment was disbanded before December 1536. Of the 12 monks and 22 conversi only the abbot, William Angell, received a pension of £10.Following the dissolution in 1536, the church, conventual buildings, gate-house, bell tower and even the old parish church of Sawtry Judith were demolished. Stone was removed from the site as late as the 19th century.Excavations took place between 1907 and 1913. The layout of most of the abbey was recovered. The church was cruciform with short transepts and choir. The cloisters were located to the south and to their East was an infirmary or Abbots lodging. A guest house was situated south-west of the cloister. The earthworks were resurveyed and are well preserved. The site has been scheduled since 1954.

Gamsey Wood is a 4 hectare nature reserve north-east of Woodwalton in Cambridgeshire. It is managed by the Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire.The main trees in this wood are ash and field maple, but there are also several wild service trees. Spring flowers include bluebells, wood anemones and yellow archangels, and there are birds such as fieldfares and nightingales.There is access from Raveley Road by a track through Keeler farm to the reserve entrance at the north-east corner of the site.

The Connington South rail crash occurred on 5 March 1967 on the East Coast Main Line near the village of Conington, Huntingdonshire, England. Five passengers were killed and 18 were injured.The 22:30 express from King's Cross to Edinburgh, hauled by D9004 The Queens Own Highlander, was travelling along the Down Fast line at around 75 mph when the rear portion of the train was derailed to the left. The last four coaches came to rest on their sides and two others were derailed.

Monks Wood is a 157-hectare (390-acre) National Nature Reserve north-west of Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire, and a Nature Conservation Review site, Grade I. A slightly more extensive area of 169.3 hectares (418 acres) is the Monks Wood and The Odd Quarter biological Site of Special Scientific Interest.The site is described by Natural England as one of Britain's most essential lowland woods. It is mainly of the wet ash-maple type, with a creamy shrub layer that was formerly coppiced. Trees include the rare wild service tree, particularly in The Odd Quarter. There is ground flora typical of ancient woodland, together with woodland rides, ponds, streams, and herb-rich grassland.Monks Wood was the site of an experimental biological research station of The Nature Conservancy from 1961 to 2009. The marsh tits in the wood have been the subject of several studies. Beginning in 1961, a 4-hectare (9.9-acre) former barley field next to the station was allowed to naturally regenerate as a rewilding experiment.There is access to Monks Wood from the road, which runs along its southern boundary. The Odd Quarter is private property with no public access.

Huntingdonshire (; abbreviated Hunts) is a local government district of Cambridgeshire and a historic county of England. The district council is based in Huntingdon. Other towns include Godmanchester, Kimbolton, Ramsey, St Ives and St Neots. The population was 180,800 at the 2021 Census.

Abbots Ripton railway station was a railway station on the East Coast Main Line in the English county of Cambridgeshire. Although trains still pass on the now electrified railway the station closed in 1958. Due to the position of the station in a cutting, it had two platforms which were staggered. These served the fast lines only, though the goods lines ran around the back of each.

Woodwalton Fen is a 209-hectare biological Site of Special Scientific Interest in the parish of Woodwalton, west of Ramsey in Huntingdonshire, Cambridgeshire, England. It is a Ramsar wetland site of international importance, a National Nature Reserve, a Special Area of Conservation and a Nature Conservation Review site, Grade I. The site is managed by Natural England.

The Middle Level Navigations are a network of waterways in England, primarily used for land drainage, which lie in The Fens between the Rivers Nene and Great Ouse, and between the cities of Peterborough and Cambridge. Most of the area through which they run is at or below sea level, and attempts to protect it from inundation have been carried out since 1480. The Middle Level was given its name by the Dutch Engineer Cornelius Vermuyden in 1642, who subsequently constructed several drainage channels to make the area suitable for agriculture. Water levels were always managed to allow navigation, and Commissioners were established in 1754 to maintain the waterways and collect tolls from commercial traffic. The Middle Level Main Drain to Wiggenhall St Germans was completed in 1848, which provided better drainage because the outfall was lower than that at Salters Lode. Whittlesey Mere, the last remaining lake, was drained soon afterwards, using one of the first applications of John Appold's centrifugal pump, following its appearance at the Great Exhibition in 1851. Traffic on the network began to diminish after the opening of the railway through March in 1846, and fell dramatically in the early twentieth century. The last regular commercial traffic was the tanker barge Shellfen, which delivered fuel oil to pumping stations until 1971. As a result of the drainage, land levels continued to fall, and in 1934 the gravity outfall at Wiggenhall St Germans was replaced by a pumping station, with three diesel engines driving 8 ft 6 in (2.6 m) diameter pumps. Its capacity was increased in 1951, and again in 1969–70, when two of the engines were replaced by electric motors. Following over 50 hours of continuous running at maximum capacity in 1998, a new pumping station was commissioned. Work on it began in 2006, and when it was completed in 2010, it was the second largest pumping station in Europe. Much of the drainage of the Middle Levels relies on pumping, and the Commissioners manage over 100 pumping stations throughout the area. Interest in restoration of the Middle Levels for leisure traffic began in 1949, and the first significant work by volunteers occurred in 1972, when they worked on the restoration of Well Creek, which finally reopened in 1975. Since then, locks have been lengthened, to allow access by modern narrowboats, as they were built for Fen Lighters, which were only 49 feet (15 m) long. The southern reaches became more accessible in 2006, when a low Bailey bridge was raised by soldiers from the 39 Engineer Regiment. The system is managed by Commissioners, and they are the fourth largest navigation authority in Great Britain.

The Abbots Ripton rail disaster occurred on 21 January 1876 at Abbots Ripton, then in the county of Huntingdonshire, England, on the Great Northern Railway main line, previously thought to be exemplary for railway safety. In the accident, the Special Scotch Express train from Edinburgh to London was involved in a collision, during a blizzard, with a coal train. An express travelling in the other direction then ran into the wreckage. The initial accident was caused by: over-reliance on signals and block working as allowing high-speed running even in adverse conditions systematic signal failure in the adverse conditions of that day due to a vulnerability to accumulation of snow and iceThe accident (and the subsequent inquiry into it) led to fundamental changes in British railway signalling practice.