Ketton is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

Rutland Rutland is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It borders Leicestershire to the north and west, Lincolnshire to the north-east, and Northamptonshire to the south-west. Oakham is the largest town and county town. Rutland has a ...

in the

East Midlands The East Midlands is one of nine official regions of England. It comprises the eastern half of the area traditionally known as the Midlands. It consists of Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire (except for North Lincolnshire and North East ...

of England. It is about east of

Oakham Oakham is a market town and civil parish in Rutland (of which it is the county town) in the East Midlands of England. The town is located east of Leicester, southeast of Nottingham and northwest of Peterborough. It had a population of 12,14 ...

and west of

Stamford, Lincolnshire Stamford is a market town and civil parish in the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England. The population at the 2011 census was 19,701 and estimated at 20,645 in 2019. The town has 17th- and 18th-century stone buildings, older timber ...

. The 2011 Census recorded a parish population of 1,926, making it the fourth largest settlement in Rutland, after Oakham,

Uppingham Uppingham is a market town and civil parish in the ceremonial county of Rutland, England, off the A47 between Leicester and Peterborough, south of Oakham. It had a population of 4,745 according to the 2011 census, estimated at 4,853 in 2019. ...

and Cottesmore. The village has a primary school. Ketton gave its name to the Ketton Rural District of Rutland which existed from 1894 to 1974. Ketton ward, which includes the parishes of

Barrowden Barrowden is a village in Rutland in the East Midlands of England. ] The village's name means 'burial-mound hill'. There are a number of Tumulus, barrows in the area. The population of the civil parish was 506 at the 2011 census. There is a ...

, Tinwell and Tixover, is represented by two councillors on

Rutland County Council Rutland County Council, officially called Rutland County Council District Council, is the Local government in England, local authority for the non-metropolitan county of Rutland in the East Midlands of England. Since 1997 the council has been a ...

Etymology

The name of Ketton is first attested 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 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

of 1086, as ''Chetene''. The form ''Ketene'' first appears in 1174, and ''Keton'' in 1322. The origin of this name is uncertain, though scholars agree that the last element came during the history of the name's use to be thought of as the common place-name element deriving from

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

("estate").

Eilert Ekwall Bror Oscar Eilert Ekwall (8 January 1877 in Vallsjö – 23 November 1964 in Lund) was a Swedish academic, Professor of English at Sweden's Lund University from 1909 to 1942 and one of the outstanding scholars of the English language in the firs ...

was confident that the vowel at the end of the early spellings represented the

word ("river"), and that the name originated as an earlier name for the River Chater. One suggestion for the earlier part of the name is that it contains an otherwise unattested

personal name A personal name, full name or prosoponym (from Ancient Greek ''prósōpon'' – person, and ''onoma'' –name) is the set of names by which an individual person or animal is known. When taken together as a word-group, they all relate to that on ...

*''Ceta'' in the

genitive In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can ...

form *''Cetan'', in which case it once meant "Ceta's river". An alternative explanation for the first syllable is that it is the

Common Brittonic Common Brittonic (; ; ), also known as British, Common Brythonic, or Proto-Brittonic, is a Celtic language historically spoken in Britain and Brittany from which evolved the later and modern Brittonic languages. It is a form of Insular Cel ...

word found in modern Welsh as ("woodland"). Ekwall thought that this might have been a regional name that gave rise to a noun *''Cēte'' ("the people of Cet"); in its genitive form this could have produced *''Cētena-ēa'' ("the river of the people of Cet"). A further suggestion on these lines is that the second syllable originated as the word found in Welsh as ("old"), in which case the name once meant "old wood", later giving its name to a river.

Village

The village was originally three separate settlements: Ketton, Aldgate and Geeston; but they merged to form the village that Ketton is today. The village has a post office and general store, a library, a branch GP surgery, two pubs (the Railway Inn and the Northwick Arms), a sports centre, a playschool and a

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

primary school which in 2021/2022 had 185 pupils on its roll. The village has two churches (Church of England and Methodist). The earliest parts of St Mary's Church, the

Grade I listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

Church of England parish church A parish church in the Church of England is the church which acts as the religious centre for the people within each Church of England parish (the smallest and most basic Church of England administrative unit; since the 19th century sometimes ...

, are 12th century. The church has a central tower and spire. The west front is an example of late 12th-century transitional architecture and the remainder of the church is mainly 13th century. The nave was restored under the direction of

George Gilbert Scott Sir George Gilbert Scott (13 July 1811 – 27 March 1878), largely known as Sir Gilbert Scott, was a prolific English Gothic Revival architect, chiefly associated with the design, building and renovation of churches and cathedrals, although he ...

in 1861–62 and the chancel under the direction of his pupil

Thomas Graham Jackson Sir Thomas Graham Jackson, 1st Baronet (21 December 1835 – 7 November 1924) was one of the most distinguished British architects of his generation. He is best remembered for his work at Oxford, including the Oxford Military College at Co ...

in 1863–66. Jackson's chancel roof was painted by

Ninian Comper Sir John Ninian Comper (10 June 1864 – 22 December 1960) was a Scottish architect, one of the last of the great Gothic Revival architecture, Gothic Revival architects. His work almost entirely focused on the design, restoration and embellishm ...

in 1950. The stone is from Barnack. There are Ketton headstones in the churchyard; one by the lychgate depicts mason's tools and is by stonemason William Hibbins of Ketton who built Hibbins House, which is still standing. The spire is 144 feet (44 metres) high. The Methodist chapel was refurbished in 2013 but dates back some 150 years. Robert of Ketton was the first person to translate the

Qur'an The Quran, also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation directly from God ('' Allāh''). It is organized in 114 chapters (, ) which consist of individual verses ('). Besides ...

into

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

. The translation was complete by 1143. Ketton is also home to a natural burial ground towards the Western side of the village.

Ketton stone and cement

The village gives its name to Ketton stone, a

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

which is quarried locally and is used in many buildings in the village and elsewhere. Some areas of former quarrying, Ketton Quarries, are a

Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain, or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland, is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle ...

, maintained by Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust. The limestone is used to make

cement A cement is a binder, a chemical substance used for construction that sets, hardens, and adheres to other materials to bind them together. Cement is seldom used on its own, but rather to bind sand and gravel ( aggregate) together. Cement mi ...

. Ketton Cement Works opened in 1928 and by November that year the number of staff had risen to 250. The plant, owned by Hanson Cement (now part of HeidelbergCement), meets more than 10% of the UK demand for cement.

Renewable energy in Ketton

In 2013 Lark Energy built a

solar power Solar power, also known as solar electricity, is the conversion of energy from sunlight into electricity, either directly using photovoltaics (PV) or indirectly using concentrated solar power. Solar panels use the photovoltaic effect to c ...

farm on land reclaimed from a 1940s quarry. The second phase was opened in 2015 by Secretary of State for Energy

Amber Rudd Amber Augusta Rudd (born 1 August 1963) is a British former politician who served as Home Secretary from 2016 to 2018 and Secretary of State for Work and Pensions from 2018 to 2019. She was a Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Pa ...

. The solar farm provides 13% of the cement works' annual energy consumption. In 2004

planning committee resolved to approve a planning application for one

wind turbine A wind turbine is a device that wind power, converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. , hundreds of thousands of list of most powerful wind turbines, large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, were generating over ...

on land adjacent to the cement works off Steadfold Lane in Ketton. However, issues surrounding fast jets flying from RAF Cottesmore meant that a planning permission was never granted. A proposal from REG Windpower to install two wind turbines near Steadfold Lane was withdrawn in August 2012.

Transport

Ketton is served by buses on the service between Stamford and

Ketton and Collyweston railway station Ketton and Collyweston railway station is a former station serving the villages of Ketton, Geeston, Aldgate and Collyweston, Rutland. It is located in Geeston adjacent to a level crossing on the Ketton to Collyweston road. It is under half a m ...

closed in 1966.

References

External links

{{authority control Villages in Rutland Civil parishes in Rutland Rutland places with etymologically Brittonic names