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Information about Bassingbourn circa 1900

BASSINGBOURN (or Bassingbourne) is a parish and village, the latter being about 3 miles north-west from Royston station (a large proportion of the township of Royston and the hamlet of Kneesworth being within this parish), in the Western division of the county, hundred of Armingford, petty sessional division of Arrington and Melbourn, union and county court district of Royston, rural deanery of Shingay and archdeaconry and diocese of Ely. The church of SS, Peter and Paul, erected in the 14th century, is a building of stone and flint, consisting of chancel, nave, aisles, south porch of the 15th century and an embattled western tower containing a clock and 5 bells cast by Miles Graye in 1650: in the church are monuments to the Nightingale and Turpin families, including two to Jeffrey Nightingale, ob. 1664 and to Edw. Nightingale, ob. 1723: the edifice was restored in 1865, at a cost of about £2,000, to which sum the Dean and Chapter of Westminister contributed £300: the tower arch has been opened, a vestry formed in the tower and fitted up for the reception of the library of rare theological works, partly bequeathed to this parish in 1717 by Sir Edward Nightingale, a former owner of Kneesworth, to which additions have been made by different vicars; it now consists of 867 volumes; the east window is a memorial to the Rev. Freeman Heathcote Bishop M.A. vicar from 1861 and his two daughters, and was presented by his widow and three sons; there are 600 sittings. The register dates from the year 1558, and the churchwardens' accounts from 1498. The living is a vicarage, net yearly value £180, with residence and including 158 acres of glebe, in the gift of the Dean and Chapter of Westminister, and held since 1899 by the Rev. Robert Henry Boyd, of St. Bees. Here is a congregational chapel with 450 sittings. A Burial Board of seven members was formed in 1877: the cemetry, at the east end of the village, is 2-and-a-half acres in extent, and has two mortuary chapels and a lodge for the keeper; the total cost was £1,500. A market was formerly held in this parish. Here are three manors: the Rev. William Robert Finch-Hatton B.A. rector of Great Weldon, Northants, holds the manors of Bassingbourn Richmond and Castles Seymours and Rowsey, and the trustees of the late Biscoe Hill Wortham esq. (d.1895) are lords of the manor of Guyises. The principal landowners and the Rev. William R. Finch-Hatton B.A. rector of Great Weldon, Northants; Francis William Beldon esq. B.A., J.P. of Toft Manor, Toft ; the trustees of Arthur May, Edwin May, the trustees of the late Biscoe Hill Wortham esq. and Caius College, Cambridge. The soil is clayey and chalky, and the subsoil gault and clay. The crops are wheat, barley, oats, beans, peas and rye. The area of entire civil parish is 3,381 acres; assessable value, £3,382; the population in 1891 was 1,828 in the civil and 1,374 in the ecclesiastical parish.

Sexton, John Peters.

* Kelly's Directory of Cambridgeshire 1900 (London: Kelly's Directories Limited, 1900), pp.21.