Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for NEOTS (St.)

NEOTS (St.), a town, a parish, a sub-district, and a district, in Huntingdonshire. The town stands on the river Ouse, at the boundary with Beds, ¾ of a mile W of the Great Northern railway, and 8½ S S W of Huntingdon; takes its name from the same recluse who gavename to St. Neot in Cornwall; includes, on the S, thesuburb of Eynesbury, where there was a Benedictine monastery; was the scene, in 1648, at a bridge on the Ouse, of the capture of the Earl of Holland, fighting for Charles I.; consists of wide well-built streets, with handsome rectangular market-place; is a seat of petty sessions and county courts; and has a head post-office, ‡a railway station with telegraph, three banking offices, three chief inns, a police station, a corn exchange, a church, three dissenting chapels, three public schools, and charities £91; and publishes a weekly newspaper. Eynesbury suburb is separated from the town by a streamlet called the Henbrook; and occupies the site of a Roman station. The Benedictine monastery there was founded in 974, by Earl Alric and his wife Ethelfleda; became associated with St. Neot, by the furtive conveyance to it of his relics from Cornwall; was made a cellto Bec abbey in Normandy, in 1113, by Roisia de Clere; was given, at the dissolution, to the Cromwells; and has left some remains. The police station of St. Neots is a neat building, and stands adjoined to an apartment in which the petty sessions are held. The corn exchange was built in 1863, at a cost of £4,000; and is a fine edifice, in the Tudor style. The church is later English, large, elegant, and symmetrical; includes St. Neot's chapel, with an oak roof; and has a tower 150 feet high. The dissenting chapels are Independent, Baptist, and Wesleyan. The national school is for boys, girls, an .infants; and has an average attendance of about 360. Newton's free school adjoins the churchyard; was rebuilt in 1860; is in the pointed style, with a bell-turret; and has £60 a year from endowment. The Wesleyan schoolwas recently built at a cost of about £1, 450; and is dneat structure, in a mixture of the pointed and the Tudor styles. A weekly market is held on Thursday; and fairs, on Ascension day, on the day three weeks after Ascension day, on the Thursday after 11 Oct., and on 17 Dec. Extensive factory works and a foundry, for gas apparatus, gas-meters, steam-engines, and hot-water apparatus, are in the market-place; extensive papermills are on a common about a mile from the town; and there are large breweries, steam flour-mills, and some maltings. Pop. of the town, exclusive of Eynesbury, in 1851, 2, 951; in 1861, 3,090. Houses, 642.

The parish contains also the hamlets of Monks-Hardwick and Wintringham. Acres, 4, 750. Real property, £14, 296; of which £700 are in canals. Pop. in 1851, 3, 157; in 1861, 3, 321. Houses, 681. The manor belongs to the Earl of Sandwich. Priory Hill is the seat of G. W. Rowley, Esq. Monks-Hardwick House was the residence of the Cromwells; stands within a largerectangular moated area; and is now a farm-house. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Ely. Value, £163.* Patron, the Lord Chancellor. An ancient chapel stoodat Wintringham. Friar Hugh of St. Neot's, Bishop F. White, and lord-mayors Drope and Gedney were natives.—The sub-district contains also the parishes of Eynesbury, Abbotsley, Waresley, Tetworth, Little Paxton, Southoe, Diddington, Graffham, Buckden, Offord-Cluney, Offord-Darcy, Great Paxton, and Toseland, electorally in Huntingdon, Graveley, electorally in Cambridge, and . Little Barford, electorally in Beds. Acres, 30, 827. Pop., 9, 616. Houses, 2,023. The district comprehendsalso the sub-district in Kimbolton, containing the parishes of Kimbolton, Stow, Great Catworth, Swineshead, Great Staughton, Midloe, and Hail-Weston, electorally in Huntingdon, and Eaton-Socon, Tilbrook, Shelton, Dean, Pertenhall, and Little Staughton, electorally in Beds, Acres of the district, 65, 256. Poor rates in 1863, £10, 450. Pop. in 1851, 18, 825; in 1861, 18, 965. Houses, 4,090. Marriages in 1863, 122; births, 669, of which 54 were illegitimate; deaths, 406, of which160 were at ages under 5 years, and 11 at ages above 85. Marriages in the ten years 1851-60, 1, 413; births, 6, 288; deaths, 3, 569. The places of worship, in 1851, were 29 of the Church of England, with 6, 927 sittings; 2 of Independents, with 676 s.; 7 of Baptists, with2, 331 s.; 11 of Wesleyan Methodists, with 2,065 s.; 4of Primitive Methodists, with 390 s.; 3 of Moravians, with 680 s.; 1 undefined, with 350 s.; and 1 of Latter Day Saints, with 50 s. The schools were 23 public day-schools, with 1, 350 scholars; 26 private day-schools, with 607 s.; 42 Sunday schools, with 3, 340 s.; and 2evening schools for adults, with 48 s. The workhouse is in Eaton-Socon; and, at the census of 1861, had 100inmates.


(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a town, a parish, a sub-district, and a district"   (ADL Feature Type: "cities")
Administrative units: St Neots AP/CP       St Neots SubD       St Neots RegD/PLU       Huntingdonshire AncC
Place names: NEOTS ST     |     ST NEOTS
Place: St Neots

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