Kimpton is a village in

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For gov ...

, England, six miles south of

Hitchin Hitchin () is a market town and unparished area in the North Hertfordshire district in Hertfordshire, England, with an estimated population of 35,842. History Hitchin is first noted as the central place of the Hicce people, a tribe holding ...

, seven miles north of

St Albans St Albans () is a cathedral city in Hertfordshire, England, east of Hemel Hempstead and west of Hatfield, north-west of London, south-west of Welwyn Garden City and south-east of Luton. St Albans was the first major town on the old Roman ...

and four miles from

Harpenden Harpenden () is a town and civil parish in the City and District of St Albans in the county of Hertfordshire, England. The population of the built-up area was 30,240 in the 2011 census, whilst the population of the civil parish was 29,448. Ha ...

and

Luton Luton () is a town and unitary authority with borough status, in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 census, the Luton built-up area subdivision had a population of 211,228 and its built-up area, including the adjacent towns of Dunstable an ...

. The population at the 2011 Census was 2,167.

History

Kimpton is mentioned 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 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

: "In the Half-Hundred of HITCHIN 24 Ralph holds KIMPTON from the Bishop. It answers for 4 hides. Land for 10 ploughs. In Lordship 2; a third possible. 2 Frenchmen and 12 villagers with 2 smallholders have 7 ploughs. 3 cottagers; 5 slaves. Meadow for 6 oxen; woodland, 800 pigs; 1 mill at 8s. The total value is and was £12; before 1066 £15. Aelfeva, mother of Earl Morcar, held this manor."''Domesday Book'' (1976, Phillimore, Chichester) 12 Hertfordshire Chapter 5 (folio 134 d) The manor was later held by the Hoo-Keate family, and then by marriage to the

Dacre family Baron Dacre is a title that has been created three times in the Peerage of England, every time by writ. History The first creation came in 1321 when Ralph Dacre was summoned to Parliament as Lord Dacre. He married Margaret, 2nd Baroness Multo ...

. The village hall is called Lady Dacre Hall.

Governance

North Hertfordshire District Council

Kimpton Ward is located within the local government district of North Hertfordshire. The North Hertfordshire District Councillor for Kimpton i
Cllr Ralph Muncer
(

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

Hertfordshire County Council

Kimpton Ward is located within the Hertfordshire County Council Division of Knebworth and Codicote and is represented b
Cllr Richard Thake
(

Parliamentary Representation

The Ward is represented in Parliament by Bim Afolami MP (

) who was first elected as the MP for

Hitchin and Harpenden Hitchin and Harpenden is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2017 by Bim Afolami, a Conservative. History The constituency was created for the 1997 general election from parts of several former Hert ...

in 2017.

The Village

The village lies along the valley of a dried-up river bed and is about one mile long. Some of the houses on the High Street date back to the 16th century, but most are 19th and early 20th century. Behind the High Street are two large housing estates built in the 1970s. The village school is a primary and nursery school with over 150 children.

Parish Church of St. Peter and St. Paul

Kimpton has a spacious

flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and start ...

-built parish church in the unusual transitional style between Norman and Early English. The Dacre Chapel has a fine

Perpendicular In elementary geometry, two geometric objects are perpendicular if they intersect at a right angle (90 degrees or π/2 radians). The condition of perpendicularity may be represented graphically using the '' perpendicular symbol'', ⟂. It c ...

screen, and the remains of early wall paintings in the chancel show

St Christopher Saint Christopher ( el, Ἅγιος Χριστόφορος, ''Ágios Christóphoros'') is venerated by several Christian denominations as a martyr killed in the reign of the 3rd-century Roman emperor Decius (reigned 249–251) or alternatively u ...

and the Seven Corporal Works of Mercy. The belfry contains a peal of eight bells, the oldest having been cast c.1390.

The Kimpton Flood

In February 2001, Kimpton was hit by flooding due to an unprecedented amount of rainfall. The dried up river Kym, which was now a vital road, emerged again and followed its natural course from Netherfield Springs, through Kimpton and joined the Mimram at Kimpton Mill. The situation became fairly serious on the 24th when business owners from the Industrial Estate on Claggy road and also residents at risk hired pumps and called the Fire Brigade to try to deal with the 1-metre-deep water flow. The total cost of the damage caused by the flood was approximately £500,000. There is evidence suggesting that this is not the only flood to occur in the history of the village. There was a BBC news report on the situation.

References

External links

Kimpton Village WebsiteKimpton Scouts WebsiteKimpton Art Show
{{authority control Villages in Hertfordshire Civil parishes in Hertfordshire North Hertfordshire District