THE RIPTONS : ABBOTS & KINGS
ABBOTS RIPTON : CHURCH OF ST ANDREW
Church Post Code PE28 2LF
Church open by arrangement
It was a dull day in Huntingdonshire in the late spring of 2025 and a two church crawl visiting the churches at Abbots and Kings Ripton, two of the few churches within the catchment area of my sites that I had failed to see inside. We started off with the church of St Andrew at Abbots Ripton.
This is a pleasant Hunts village which can be found some four miles to the north of Huntingdon with Peterborough around 18 miles off to the north. According to Google I should be able to walk from the Ripton to Peterborough in six hours; which seems optimistic and will remain untested.
Fond memories of a trip to visit Abbots Ripton back in 2014. David stopped the car on some high ground as we neared the village; we got out and looked north. The church at Wood Walton stood out proudly in the flat Fenland landscape’ with the railway line running alongside. With maximum zoom on we could easily pick out Peterborough Cathedral, the floodlights from Peterborough United’s football ground and what I think was the Ikea distribution depot in Woodston nearby.
Abbots Ripton is to be found on the B1090 which connects Huntingdon to Sawtry; a pleasant village which recorded a population of 312 at the time of the census of 2021. Muddy Stilettos voted the village here as being one of the best places to live in Cambridgeshire with it being described as ‘next level lovely with chocolate box houses and wonderful walks’.
It is quiet and peaceful, but there was tragedy here in 1876 when the Special Scottish Express train, nicknamed the Flying Scotsman, which connected London and Edinburgh was in a collision and derailed, sadly killing 13 people.
There was a church and a priest here at the time of the Domesday Survey in 1086, but nothing remains of that original structure. The village here was named Riptune with the Abbots part of the name added during the 12th to 13th centuries acknowledging that the lad here was owned by the Abbot of Ramsey and to distinguish it from neighbouring Kings Ripton
The church of St Andrew sits alongside the main road; in picturesque surroundings, partially surrounded by trees. The church here is normally closed to visitors out of service times but the church here was very helpful is arranging a visit; with the key being easily collected.
As mentioned earlier, there was a church here at the time of the Domesday Survey but the earliest surviving parts of the present structure date back as far as the 13th century; with the church being dedicated by the Bishop of Lincoln in 1242. It is worth noting back to the sheer size of the Lincoln Diocese in medieval times; with Buckden Tower nearby being an old palace for the Bishops of Lincoln. It was reduced in size when the Diocese of Ely was formed in 1109 and reduced again when the Dioceses of Peterborough and Oxford were each formed in 1541.
The church that we see today consists of west tower, nave with north and south aisles, north chapel, south porch and chancel.
The nave and south arcade date from the 13th century with much rebuilding here during the 15th century, at which point the clerestory, chancel north arcade and north chapel were added along with the west tower which dates to the late 15th century. The south porch is suggested to date from the 13th century but is liable to have been rebuilt.
The church here was restored in second half of the 19th century and also in 1930 by architect S inskip Ladds.
Looking at the church from the south we have a square battlemented, buttressed and pinnacled four stage tower, with the lower stage to the south lost behind bushes; with the church clock looking out from the south face. Moving to the west we can get an uninterrupted view of the whole of the tower. This is a fairly plain tower to be fair; with no gargoyles and just a couple of plain water spouts to the west. A bench is set against the west door of the tower, looking out over the church grounds.
The clerestory takes the form of three two light windows; the east window is of five lights with intricate tracery. The only real decoration to the exterior comes in the form of carved creatures at the label stops of the nave windows. A muzzled beast with opposable thumbs looks out with an air of mischief. Close by is a very weathered headless figure; just a hole remaining where at one point its head would have been pegged in. A lion curls up, with weathered tongue stuck out, peering out as best as it can through lichen encrusted eyes.
When Revd Owen published his study of the church bells in Huntingdonshire in 1899 he noted three bells here, with a broken fourth. The first of the ring is of great age; cast by William Dawe; a founder from London who was active from 1381 until 1418. This bell has the Latin inscription ‘NON VENIT AD VENIAM QUI NESCIT AMARE MARIAM’ which translates as ‘He who does not know how to love Mary does not come to forgiveness’.
The second of the ring was cast by Tobias Norris III of the Stamford Bellfoundry in 1671 with the third by John Warner & Son of London which was cast in 1874. At that time Owen recorded that an old tenor bell was broken which was inscribed ‘NON CLAMOR SED AMOR CANTAT IN AURE DEI’ ‘not noise but love sounds in the ear of God’. The situation that Owen noted is still how things are today.
The visitor on service days enters in through the south porch but I entered in through a door to the north; which led in to the north chapel.
It was a dull day but it was surprisingly bright inside. There are plenty of windows to the south here of clear glass and the lack of stained glass also helped in that respect. I can imagine that on a bright sunny day, the church here would be a lovely, bright and welcoming space.
A quick initial look around showed that there was still some decoration up from Epiphany with a star hanging from underneath the chancel arch and sone decorations around the piers. An initial look suggested that fittings came from one of the periods of restoration; with a red carpet running through the nave to the high altar.
The north and south arcades are each of three bays and the wall of the south aisle is curious in that it has three very large blind arches which run from floor to ceiling, the length of the nave and over the south door. Some very ancient stone benches line the walls of the aisles, which were there for the old and infirm in the days before wooden pews were a feature in churches. This led to the expression ‘the weakest go to the wall’.
A squint to the south of the chancel arch allowed someone standing at the east end of the south aisle to see the high altar in the chancel. The east window of the chancel is of five lights with clear glass. A medieval piscina, in which the holy vessels used during the Mass were washed. There is also a piscina at the east end of the south aisle; meaning that the Mass was also given from there as well. There is no stained glass in the chancel or anywhere on the south side of the church, with the exception of a few brightly coloured diamond shapes in the tracery of a window in the south aisle.
There are a couple of stained glass windows in the north aisle. We see a modern stained glass depiction of Jesus with Mary and Martha, his friends from Bethany whose brother Lazarus Jesus was later to raise from the dead. As always Martha is sat intently listening to what Jesus has to say whilst Martha her sister is busy and preoccupied and here is shown carrying a basket of laundry. Mary is always shown with long hair and just before the crucifixion it is told that she anointed Jesus’ feet with expensive pure nard and wiped them with her hair.
The other stained glass is a three light window of Faith Hope and Charity. This is a pretty standard representation of three female figures with Faith shown with a cross, Hope with an anchor and Charity carrying a baby whilst holding on to a small child. Charity is replaced by the word love in modern translations of the Bible and is always central signifying its importance. Corinthians Chapter 13 verse 13 reads ‘And now these three remain faith hope and love. But the greatest of these is love’.
The church grounds are spacious and well maintained, with some delightful views out across to thatched cottages that run alongside the church. There is nothing of any great rarity or interest in the grounds here with nothing having its own Grade II Listing, but finely carved angels can be seen on many of the stones, symbolising the safe escorting of the soul towards Heaven. One stone to pick out though sees an angel in flight blowing a trumpet. The trumpet was an often used symbol of the resurrection and this can be seen as a reflection of the faith of the deceased, who will rest there until Christ returns; and at which point be called from his grave.
KINGS RIPTON : CHURCH OF ST PETER
Church Post Code PE28 2NL
Church open by arrangement
Leaving Abbots Ripton we headed off just over two miles to the south east, to neighbouring Kings Ripton; another small picturesque village of chocolate box cottages which recorded a population of 191 at the time of the 2021 census.
The village was not mentioned specifically in the Domesday Survey of 1086 but was thought to have been included in the record for neighbouring Hartford; with two churches and a priest being recorded, on lands owned by King William. One of the two churches recorded was thought to be that at Kings Ripton, with nothing remaining of that early structure.
The Kings prefix alludes to that early royal connection in the same way that the Abbots prefix for its neighbours refers to Abbots Ripton being owned by Ramsey Abbey. In the past the village here was also known as Ripton Regis.
There is an interesting story here regarding Quaker James Nayler, who was buried in the village in 1660. Nayler was one of the ‘Valiant Sixty’, a group of activists and itinerant Quaker preachers and missionaries. Nayler was radical in his views and was imprisoned for blasphemy after recreating Jesus’ Triumphal Palm Sunday entry in to Jerusalem in 1656 by riding a horse in to Bristol. In October of 1660 Nayler was robbed and left for dead. He was taken to the home of a Quaker doctor in Kings Ripton where he later died. He was buried in the village, I think in a Quaker graveyard.
The church of St Peter is situated centrally on slightly raised ground; thatched cottages to north and south of the church with a beautiful thatched row of Grade II Listed cottages forming part of the churchyard boundary to the north. An old telephone box can be seen alongside the church to the south west end of the church grounds. Many of these have a Grade II Listing; this one hasn’t though. All have fallen out of their intended use but many have found a job in retirement as libraries or holding defibrillators.
The church that we see today consists of west tower, nave with north aisle and north clerestory, south porch and chancel. The core of the church dates back to the 13th century with the nave and chancel dating back to that time. The north aisle dates from the 14th century with the west tower and clerestory each being added during the 15th century with the south porch being rebuilt early in the 16th century. The church was restored in 1851.
The perpendicular square west tower is of four stages; buttressed and battlemented with a badly damaged gargoyle central on each four side. Scaffolding holes have been bricked in using different colour stone. The nave is short and is dominated by two tall three light windows. There is a clerestory to the north, this taking the form of three small roundels contained within a quatrefoil design.
The chancel is of red brick with steeply pitched tile roof. The east window is of three lights. The church is heavily buttressed throughout. A beautiful structure!
When Owen’s study of the church bells in Huntingdonshire was published in 1899 there were two bells hanging here, with pits for three, with the second bell missing. Each were cast by William Culverden of London between 1510 and 1520. The first is inscribed ‘SANCTE JOHANNES ORA PRO NOBIS’ which translates as ‘Saint John Pray for Us’. The second is simply inscribed ‘SANCTE JOHANNES’.
With regards the missing second bell, Owen reports a local tradition which states that a man died suddenly in the parish; instead of burying the man he was dragged through a hedge and in to the parish of Hartford, leaving them to bury him instead. This they duly did, but claimed a bell in forfeit. Owen goes on to note that the bells were in poor order at the time.
The priest’s door on the south wall of the chancel had been left open for me, with my arrival watched over by a pair of carved heads, one human male and another a mythical beast, at the label stops of the priests door.
To be fair, I caught the church of St Peter at a bad time; like a person looking rough in the morning after partying the night before. And to be fair, that is pretty much what had happened here; with the church still cluttered from a ‘Pop Up Pub’ which the church had recently hosted. This was a three day event, which started on the Friday evening and ran through to the Sunday evening; with a quiz on the Saturday evening. The hand crafted ales advertised on the flyer weren’t of interest to me but the cream teas available throughout the weekend certainly would have been!
There was literally stuff everywhere, which is not meant as a criticism at all, but just a note as to why the church is looking cluttered! I am assuming that this was a fundraiser for the church itself, but I stand to be corrected on this. Many churches do use things like this as a fundraiser and to be fair this can bring in more income than through the collection plates on a Sunday.
‘Pop up pub’, ‘Rave in the Nave’, ‘Blues in the Pews’, a scalextric night on one occasion when the nave of a church was turned in to a huge scalextric track. These are all good means of generating income and opening the churches which would otherwise be closed. The church here for example has ten services a year; incredibly difficult to make a church financially viable without some extra form of income.
The event took place during the long hot summer of 2025; a summer which recorded four heatwaves, with this event taking place during the first heat wave. I wish I had been able to attend! What a lovely way to spend a warm summer evening.
For the record, the interior is bright and welcoming, walls are whitewashed and there is no stained glass here which helped in that respect. An initial look suggested that the fittings and certainly the flooring dated from the Victorian restoration.
The north arcade is of three bays with octagonal piers and moulded capitals; with the north aisle itself mainly dating from the 19th century. The chancel arch is 13th century.
My attention was monetarily distracted by the price board for the cakes. After checking out the price of the lemon drizzle I wandered in to the chancel.
The east window is of three lights with clear glass; the altar is plain and simple with cross and candlesticks with blue altar cloth. The medieval piscina can be found in its traditional position against the south wall of the chancel; the top visible over the remnants of the weekends activities.
The north aisle was pretty much set out purely with tables and chairs; a yellow M&M smiley face cushion sat solitary on a bench against the south wall, alone but smiling still!
The font was bedecked in Union Jack flags. There is some real age to this; with it dating from the 13th century, which would probably date it to the rebuilding of the present structure. The bowl is carved with foliate and star designs. The tube of Factor 50 sun tan cream on top of the font was testament as to the severity of the sun at that point.
There is nothing of any great interest or rarity in the church grounds, but the churchyard wall itself, which dates back to the 17th century, has its own Grade II Listing. With regards the gravestones themselves, there of plenty of angels, a symbol of the safe escorting of the soul towards Heaven. My attention though was attracted by a fragment, of which just a couple of words survived; ‘Wife’ and Suffering’ just a tiny echo of something that would have been so painful for those connected with this in years long gone.
And that was it; just a two church crawl (if a mere two churches could be termed a crawl); heading back towards Peterborough and an afternoon back at work. Heading home we were chatting about whether to include this church or not given how things were inside. Gary’s reply was along the lines of ‘you have bored me often enough about photographing the churches as they are when you visited. This is how this church was when you visited. Include it’. Well, spot on, especially the part about me being boring! This is how this church was when I visited and there is nothing wrong with that.