The town is continuous with Heanor, Eastwood and Ilkeston as part of the wider Nottingham Urban Area.

Little information remains as to when Ripley was founded, but it appears in the 1086 Domesday Book, when it was held by a man called Levenot.

Over the last 200 years these have dealt with steelworks, coal mining, quarrying, railway, foundry and brickworks.

One of the best-known examples of the company's work is the arched roof of St Pancras railway station in London, restored as an international terminal.

Post-2000 Butterley achievements were the design and construction of the Falkirk Wheel, a canal boat-lift funded by the Millennium Commission and the Spinnaker Tower seen in Portsmouth Harbour as the focus of its regeneration.

Ripley was also a mining community, with collieries owned by the Butterley Company until the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946.

In the 1990s, the building was much extended to the west and remodelled by Amber Valley Borough Council to form its headquarters.

Local news and television programmes are provided by BBC East Midlands and ITV Central.

Wildlife and a small woodland area can be enjoyed at Carr Wood, signposted from halfway down Butterley Hill.

At the bottom of Moseley Street, next to the Red Lion pub in Ripley Town Centre, is a recreation area named after Sir Barnes Wallis, which offers views over to Crich Stand, the Sherwood Foresters Memorial.

Crich Stand was built by Francis Hurt in 1778 and in 1922 dedicated to the fallen of the Sherwood Foresters Regiment (colloquially known as the Woofers) in World War I.

The grassed area is the site of the original Ripley Colliery, owned by Butterley Company and worked from 1863 until 1948.

It has a children's play area with a paddling pool, a paved perimeter walk, and a bandstand used as such occasionally on late Sunday afternoons in the summer.

The hospital was built after the death of a miner injured at Pentrich Colliery, who did not survive the road journey to Derby in time for treatment.