About Huntingdonshire
To help you with your research we have added some information about Huntingdonshire. The map shows the area covered, the parishes (those with links have small snippets of information), the registration districts are listed and so are the hundreds. By clicking on a parish you can see what is available from our bookstall for that parish. These items can be ordered direct from our bookstall or on-line via GenFair.
To aid in your research we have included a list of contiguous parishes here which cover Huntingdonshire, Cambridgeshire, Isle of Ely and the Soke of Peterborough. What is a continguous parish? Each parish within a county is bordered by other parishes, these are referred to as continguous or neigbouring parishes.
|
What is a hundred? From Anglo-Saxon times to the 19th century, a unit of local government common south of the river Tees. A subdivision of the shire, which had its own moot, it corresponded to the "wapentakes" of the Danelaw. Varying in size from area to area hundreds may have originated from the groupings of a hundred hides (a hide was a measurement used in the Domesday Book which was a land unit reckoned as 120 acres); they emerged as administrative units in the 10th century. Hundred courts, which met every four weeks had jurisdiction in cases relating to local issues and apportioned taxes. The hundreds were known as wapentakes in the North of England, while in Sussex there were rapes and in Kent lathes, which were groups of hundreds. By the end of the 12th century, they had ceased to be important, but were not formally abolished as units of local government until 1867. The term survives today in the Chiltern Hundreds. In the case of Leighton Bromswold this was a stone (see picture), now a 1,000 years old, hence the hundred of Leightonstone. The stone still exists but not in its original position, it now sits outside the church.
HUNTINGDONSHIRE, an inland county bounded
on the north and west by the county of Northampton, on the south-west
and soutb by the county of Bedford, on the east by the county of Cambridge;
it extends from 52o 7' to 52o 32, (N. Lat) and
from 0o 2' (E. Lon.) to 0o 31' (W. Lon.), in
its broadest part; and it contains about two hundred and thirty-six
thousand eight hundred acres, or about three hundred and seventy square
miles, The population in 1821, amounted to 48,771. Before the Remons
obtained possession of this part of Britain, the territory now included
in the small county of Huntingdon formed the western extremity of
the country of the Iceni; it subsequently became part of the great
division of Roman Britain called Flavia Cæsariensis,
and on the establishment of the Saxon octarchy, it was at first included
in the kingdom of East-Anglia, but was afterwards annexed, by conquest,
to the more powerful one of Mercia. The early annals of this county
afford no materials for history but such as relate to the acquisition
and possession of its earldom by the royal family of Scotland, which
furnished the two crowns with an additional object of contention and
mutual annoyance. A short time before the Norman Conquest the earldom,
or governorship, of this shire (being then an office granted at pleasure
and not an hereditary honour) was held by one Siward, who was in consequence
styled Earl of Huntingdon, but who, having afterwards the earldom
of Northumberland conferred upon him, was then calledd Earl of Northumberland.
William the Conqueror, having taken into favour Waltheof, the son
of Siward., gave him his own niece Judith in marriage. After the execution
of Waltheof, on the charge of treason, his widow was offered in marriage
to Simon de St Liz, a Norman soldier, but she refusing him, from dislike
to his person, was deprived of her estates, which were conferred upon
her eldest daughter, the latter being at the same time given in marriage
to the Norman who her mother had rejected. Simon de St. Liz thus became
Earl of Huntingdon; but dying in the begging of the reign of Heinry
I., his widow was married to David, brother to Alexander, King of
Scotland, and afterwards his successor on the throne, who, in her
right. inherited the possessions of Waltheof, and was made Earl of
Huntingdon and Northumberland. After his death, according to the fluctuations
in the tide of political events, or in the favour of the English monarchs,
this earldom was sometimes in the hands of the descendants of Matilda
by Simon de St. Liz and sometimes in those of her posterity by her
marriage with the Scottish prince. Henry, son of the latter, was at
first admitted earl; but on his father's refusal to acknowledge Stephen,
Count of Blois, as sovereign of England, to the exclusion of Empress
Matilda, Stephen, seizing all his possessions in England, restored
this earldom to the young Simon de St Liz. When the subsequent war
between the two countries (in which both King David, and his son Prince
Henry, invaded England, at the head of a large army,) was terminated
by the mediation of the Empress, one of the conditions of the peace
then concluded was, that the counties of Northumberland and Huntingdon
should remain in the government of Prince Henry, as heir to them by
maternal right and that for these lands, he and his successors, Princes
of Scotland, should do homage to Stephen and his successors, Kings
of England. Nevertheless, the possession of these counties was afterwards
the subject of frequent disputes between the two crowns. On the ascension
of Henry's grandson, Malcolm, to the Scottish throne, at the age of
thirteen, he was summoned to London by Henry II., to do homage to
him for the lands of Cumberland, Northumberland, and Huntingdon, on
pain of losing them, and not long afterwards, Henry sent him a second
summons, commanding him to repair to York where he had assembled a
parliament, by which, on the charge of having in the late campaign
in France, wither King Henry had carried him, betrayed to the French
the plans of the English army, he was condemned to forfeit his English
possessions. A war between the two countries ensued, but it terminated
by a treaty concluded near Carlisle, in which it was stipulated, that
Malcolm should receive back Cumberland and Huntingdon, but should
make a full surrender of Northumberland to Henry and his successors
for ever. On the breaking out of the war with Malcolm's sucessor,
William, surnamed the Lion, in which the Scottish monarch was made
prisoner, this earldom was seized. together with the rest of his possessions
in England, which were afterwards held in pledge for that king's ransom,
until delivered up by Richard I., on condition that all the castles
and fortified places within the earldoms of Huntingdon and Cumberland
should be garrisoned by his own officers and soldiers. In the subsequent
wars occasioned by the rival claims to the Scottish crown, between
the families of Bruce and Ballioll, this earldom was finally seized
by the kings of England. since which it has been granted to several
successive families. A portion of the lands however; was still retained
by the Bruces, and from them descended to the family of Cotton. The
ancient celebrity of this part of the country for the purposes of
the chase has found a lasting evidence in the name of the shire and
of the county town. According to Leland, the shire was in former times
very woody, and the deer resorted to the Fens: it was not entirely
disaforrested until the reign of Edward I. In later times, the only
events of political importance that have happened within its limits,
occurred in the course of the great civil war. The first of these
was the plundering of the town or Huntingdon, in August 1645, by the
king's troops, which, commanded by the king in person, and taking
advantage of the absence of the parliamentary army in the west, had
suddenly entered the associated eastern counties. Again Huntingdonshire
was the scene of a part of the hostilities occasioned, in 1648, by
the appearance in arms of the Earl of Holland, the Duke of Buckingham,
and others in the royal cause, with an immediate view to the relief
of Colchester. The Earl of Holland, after being driven by some of
the parliamentary troops from his quarters at Kingston upon Thames,
and wandering over the country with about a hundred horse, came to
St. Neots, in this county, where he was beset by his pursuers, and
surrendered himself without resistance, two of his officers at the
same time being killed upon the spot and the Duke of Buckingham making
his escape by forcing his way through the enemy. Huntingdonshire is included in the diocese of Lincoln,
and province of Canterburu and forms an archdeaconry, comprising the
deaneries of Huntingdon, St. Ives, Leightonstone, St. Neots, and Yaxley,
and containing ninety-three parishes, of which fifty-seven are rectories,
twenty-nine vicarages, and the remainder perpetual curacies, or united
with other parishes. For civil purposes it is divided into the four
hundreds of Norman-Cross, which includes the northern part of the
county; Toseland, the southern; Hurstingstone, the eastern; and Leightonstone,
the western. It contains the borough and market town of Huntingdon,
and the market towns of Kimbolton, Ramsey, St. Ives, and St. Neots.
Two knights are returned for the shire, and two representatives for
the borough of Huntingdon. This county is included in the Norfolk
circuit: the assizes and the quarter sessions are held at Huntingdon,
where stands the county gaol: there are twenty-two acting magistrates
for the county. A peculiarity in the civil government of Huntingdonshire
is, that it is included under the same shrievalty with Cambridgeshire;
the sheriff being chosen, in rotation, one year from the county of
Cambridge, another year from the Isle of Ely, and the third year from
this county. The rates raised in the county for the year ending March
25th, 1827, amounted to £49,518.13; the expenditure to £48,276.12.,
of which £42,127.6. was applied to the relief of the poor. It has
been observed that the temperature of the air varies nearly as much
in this county as in any district in the kingdom of the same extent.
The upland parts are very salubrious, while the fenny tract in the
north-east is much less healthful, in consequence of the effluvia
arising from the marshes, and the broad, shallow, and stagnant marshes:
this district, however, has been rendered much more healthy by the
recent improvements in the draining of it. The soils consist chiefly
of clay and loam of various qualities, sand, gravel, and peat-earth;
of these, the clay mostly predominates, being found all over the county;
the sandy and light soils, and the loams, are dispersed in small tracts
in different parts; and the peat-earth belongs almost wholly to the
fens in the north-eastern part of the county. These fens, including
the lakes, the chief of which are Whittlesea Mere and Ramsey Mere,
comprise about forty-four thousand acres, and form about one-seventh
of the great Bedford Level: eight or ten thousand acres of this may
be considered as productive; but, as stated in the last agricultural
survey of this county, drawn up for the Board of Agriculture, it requires
a sum equal to two-thirds of their rental to preserve even these from
inundation; for although they have a more elevated surface than those
which lie between them and the sea, yet they are much worse drained,
in consequence, as it is asserted in the report of the survey, of
some defect in the original plan of the dykes. The county is rather
bare of timber, which is owing to the very great demand for it in
the fens. Turf is used as fuel in nearly half the parishes; but the
inhabitants generally use wood and coal also, though in many places
very little of the latter is burnt: in the cottages of the lower class,
stubble, bean straw, reeds, and dried dung, are also used as fuel.
The only rivers of magnitude are the Ouse and the Nene. The Ouse enters
the county at St. Neots, whence it flows northward to Huntingdon:
in the vicinity of that town it takes an easterly course by St. Ives,
and having formed the boundary between this county and that of Cambridge,
it enters Cambridgeshire near Earith, being navigable in the whole
of its course through this county. The Nene forms the northern boundary
of the county, separating it from Northamptonshire, and is navigable
in all that part of its course. The greater part of the county, owing
to the want of springs, is supplied with water from ponds. The great
north road from London to Edinburgh enters the southern border of
the county near St. Neots, and passing through Buckden, Stilton, and
Yaxley, enters Northamptonshire at Wansford bridge. The turnpike roads
are numerous, and most of them very good and well formed: in consequence
of the scarcity of materials in many parts, a power is given to the
commissioners to pick off all the stones that can be found on any
of the farmers lands. The principal Roman stations in Huntingdonshire were
Duroliponte and Durobriva, the sites of which are respectively
at Godmanchester, or Huntingdon, and near Dornford Ferry. Of the ancient
roads the three principal were as follows: - The British Ermin-street
appears to have entered the county from the neighbour-hood of Cæsar's
Camp, in Hertfordshire, and to have run by Crane hill, in the track
since known by the name of Hell lane, whence, passing through Toseland,
Godmanchester, and Huntingdon, and by Alconbury, Weston, and Upton,
and falling into the line now called the Bullock road, it entered
Northamptonshire at Wansford. The Roman Ermin-street entered the county
from Cambridgeshire, in the vicinity of Papworth-St. Agnes, and proceeding,
nearly in the line of the present high road, to Godmanchester, thence
followed the course of the British Ermin-street, to the vicinity of
Alconbury, where branching off to the eastward, it resumed the line
of the present high road, through Sawtry, Stilton, and Chesterton,
to the station of Durobrivæ, where it entered Northamptonshire.
The Via Devana entered the county from Cambridgeshire, in the
neighbourhood of Fen-Stanton, and proceeded, in the line of the present
turnpike-road, to Godmanchester, whence pursuing the track of the
British Ermin-street to Alconbury, it passed to the north of Buckworth
and Old Weston, and entered Northamptonshire in the vicinity of Clapton.
Numerous Roman coins have been discovered at Godmanchester: coins,
coffins, urns, lachrymatories, &c., have been found near the site
of the station Durobrivæ; urns and coins near Somersham;
urns in Sawtrey field and Roman pottery at Holywell. The celebrated
Cars-dyke, supposed to have been originally a work of the Romans enters
Huntingdonshire at Earith, crosses Huntingdon river, passes by Littleport,
and proceeds northward to the stream called the West Water, by Benwick,
and then by that called the Old River Nene, to Whittlesea dyke. At
the time of the Reformation, the number of religious houses in this
county, according to Bishop Tanner, was nine, including one hospital:
the principal monastic remain is the ruinous gateway of the ancient
and mitred abbey of Ramsey, and the most remarkable churches are those
of Bluntisham, St. Ives, St. Neots, Godmanchester, and All Saints,
Huntingdon. Among the ancient mansion-houses, the most interesting,
from their antiquity and other circumstances, are Buckden palace,
the residence of the Bishops of Lincoln; Kimbolton castle, the seat
of the Dukes of Manchester; and Hinchinbrook house, anciently the
seat of the Cromwell family, and subsequently that of the Montagues,
Earls of Sandwich, and Viscounts Hinchinbroke. There is a mineral
spring at Somersham, but it is now in but little repute. |
Click here to return to previous page, publications home or HFHS home page
Last
Updated on:
25 January, 2018
©2000-
. Huntingdonshire Family History Society.