Cambridgeshire History On The Net

CAXTON is a parish and decayed town, on Ermine street, the Roman road between London and York, and on the borders of Huntingdonshire, and is the head of a petty sessional division, in the union of Caxton and Arrington, 2 ½ miles north-west from the Old North Road station on the Bedford Cambridge line of the London and North Western railway, about 12 west from Cambridge, 12 north from Royston and 8 east from St. Neots, in the Western division of the county, hundred of Long Stowe, county court district of St. Neots, rural deanery of Bourn and archdeaconry and diocese of Ely. The church of St. Andrew is a building of stone and flint, chiefly Early English, but with portions in the Perpendicular style, and consists of chancel, nave, south aisle, south porch and a low embattled western tower containing 6 bells, restored and a new treble bell added in 1879, at a cost of about £400 : the chancel retains a piscina with Geometric tracery in the head, and a plain sedile : the nave is curiously placed on a higher level than the chancel, and is separated from the aisle by an arcade of four very lofty arches, carried on clustered piers : there are several memorials of the Barnard family, who had a seat at Caxton, and a memorial window to the late John Augustus Wright, surgeon, of this parish d.1869 : there were formerly brasses to Sir John Myton, vicar, with effigy, 1479 : John Cretyng, 1500, and Walter Cretyng, 1483 : the chancel was redecorated in 1874 and the church was completely restored in 1874 : there are over 200 sittings. The church of Caxton, which had belonged to the priory of Lewes, was in 1351 given to the Dean and Canons of Windsor. Dowsing, the Puritan iconoclast, on coming here removed “a cross on ye steeple and one on ye church, and 20 superstitious pictures.” The register dates from the year 1741. The living is a vicarage, net yearly value £240, with residence and including 9 acres of glebe, in the gift of the Dean and Canons of Windsor, and held since 1873 by the Rev. Henry Meade Smythe M.A. of Trinity College, Oxford. A vicarage house was erected in 1868 at a cost of upwards of £1,500. Here is a Baptist chapel, erected in 1845, with 150 sittings. The charities amount to about £36, half of which sum is for fuel and the remainder for other charities. Matthew Paris, the historian, probably connected with the Paris family of Hildersham and born about 1195, is said to have been a native of this place. Kennels were erected here for the Cambridgeshire hounds in 1871 ; Cambridge, St. Ives, Huntingdon and St. Neots are convenient places for hunting visitors. The town had formerly a market, which was originally granted to Sir Baldwin de Freville in the year 1247; it was then held on Monday, but the day was afterwards changed to Tuesday, on which day it was held until the early part of the present century, since which time it has become obsolete. A police station was erected in 1859. Major James John Gape, of The Limes, St. Albans, who is lord of the manor, Francis William Edwd. Beldam esq. Of Toft Manor and Charles Wentworth Stanley esq. of Long Stowe House, Cambridge, are the principle landowners. The soil here is stiff and clayey and the subsoil a stiff blue gault. The chief crops are wheat, oats and barley. The area is 2,242 acres ; rateable value £1,573 ; the population in 1891 was 515, including 94 officers and inmates in the workhouse. There are County Magistrates for Caxton Petty Sessional Division. Petty sessions are held here every alternate Wednesday at the police station at 1 o’clock. The following places are included in the petty sessional division:- Bourn, Caldecot, Caxton, Croxton, Elsworth, Eltisley, Gamlingay, Little Gransden, Graveley, Hardwick, Kingston, Knapwell, Long Stowe, Papworth St. Agnes, Papworth Everard and Toft. Caxton and Arrington Rural District Council meets at Caxton on every alternate Wednesday at 11 a.m. Caxton and Arrington Union. Board Day, Wednesday at 11 a.m. at the workhouse. The Union comprises the parishes of Arrington, Bourne, Caldecot, Caxton, Croxton, Croydon-cum-Clopton, East Hatley, Elsworth, Eltisley, Gamlingay, Great Eversden, Great Gransden (Hunts.), Hardwick, Hatley St. George, Kingston, Knapwell, Little Eversden, Little Gransden, Long Stowe, Orwell, Papworth St. Agnes, Papworth St. Everard, Tadlow, Toft, Wimpole, & Yelling (Hunts.) The population of the Union in 1891 was 9,408 ; area, 51,503 acres; rateable value in 1900, £40,879 National School (mixed), for 100 children ; average attendance, 75 ; Miss Lucy Theobald, mistress.