Cambridgeshire History On The Net

Information about Gamlingay circa 1900

GAMLINGAY is a parish and village, bounded on the west and south by Bedfordshire, and by Hunts on the north, with a station on the Bedford and Cambridge branch of the London and North Western railway, 50 miles from London and is 6 south-east from St. Neots, in the western division of the county, hundred of Longstow, petty sessional division of Caxton, county court district of Biggleswade, union of Caxton and Arrington, rural deanery of Bourn and archdeaconry and diocese of Ely. The church of St. Mary is a cruciform building of stone in the Early English style, with Late Perpendicular additions, and consists of chancel, nave of five bays, aisles, north and south porches and an embattled western tower with small tapering spire and containing 6 bells, the previous 5 having been re-hung and a 6th bell added in 1897 as a memorial of Her Majesty's Diamond Jubilee: a carved oak screen separates the nave from the chancel, and there are monuments to the Lane family, dating from 1717 and 1754, with others of much earlier date, but now defaced: the structure was new roofed in 1843, at a cost of about £200, and thoroughly restored in 1881 under the directions of Mr. J.P. St. Aubyn. architect, at a cost of £3,500: there are 350 sittings. The earliest register dates only from the year 1699, all the previous registers having been disposed of as waste paper by a former vicar. Attached to the parish is a rectory in medieties representing respectively the manors of Merton and Avenells, both in the patronage of Merton College, Oxford; the former mediety is impropriated to the college and leased by them to the incumbent of another college living; the latter is a spiritual benefice, but a sinecure , held, on the presentation of the college, by the incumbent of the vicarage, which is in the gift of the Bishop of Ely: the living is therefore a rectory and vicarage, net yearly value £345, with residence and including 2 acres of glebe, and held since 1890 by the Rev. William Crouch B.A. of St. John's College, Cambridge. The mission church, built in 1885-6, for the convenience of parishoners residing on Gamblingay Heath and neighbourhood, and about 1-and-three-quarters from the parish church, is an edifice of red brick, from designs by Mr. J. P. St Aubyn, architect, and consists of chancel, nave and south porch: there are 110 sittings. The Baptist chapel, restored in 1881 at a cost of £400, will hold 500 persons; John Bunyan is said to have preached here. The Wesleyan chapel, built by Captain W. W. Dennis in 1883, seats 300. There are also Calvinistic and Primitive Methodist chapels. The almshouses, consisting of 10 tenements for widows of the parish, were built by Sir John Jacob kt. in 1665; at theeast end of the building, formerly a chapel, for 10 poor persons, and endowed by Mrs. Elizabeth Lane in 1745 with the interest of £2,000 Old South Sea Annuities. The market, formerly held of Tuesdays, has been discontinued since 1600, when a dreadful fire, having consumed nearly the whole town, the market was transferred to the neighbouring town of Potton in Bedfordshire. Woodbury Hall, the propertyof the trustees of the late William Harvey Astell esq. is a mansion of Portland stone situated on rising ground commanding very extensive and pleasing views of the surrounding country: it stands nearly in the centre of an estate of 500 acres, and is now occupied by Mrs. Astell, widow of John Harvey Astell esq. d. Jan. 17, 1887. The Master and Fellows of Merton College, Oxford, who are lords of the manor; Downing and Clare Colleges, Cambridge; Captain Walter Henry Octavius Duncombe J.P. of Waresley Park, Hunts; the trustees of the late William Harvey Astell esq. (ob. 1896), of Woodbury Hall, Sandy, and Samuel Woodham esq. are the principal landowners. The soilis sand; in the lower parts, clay; subsoil, gault. Bricks and tiles are made here to a considerable extent. The chief crops are wheat, oats, barley, beans, potatoes and market garden produce. The area is 4,460 acres; rateable value, £6,647; the population in 1891 was 1,692, including the hamlet of Woodbury, 1 mile west.

Parish Clerk, Aquilla Arnold.
School Board of 5 members was formed Dec. 31, 1875; J.A. Ennals, St. Neots, clerk to the board; Jonathan Hodge, Gamblingay, attendance officer
Board Schools, with residence for master and mistress, erected in 1877, at a cost of about £3,000, for 360 children; average attendance, 245; James Fowler, master; Miss Franklin, mistress; Miss Gertrude Franklin, infants' mistress
Railway Station, George Sansum, station master

* Kelly's Directory of Cambridgeshire 1900 (London: Kelly's Directories Limited, 1900), pp.136.