Cambridgeshire History On The Net

Information about Linton circa 1900

LINTON is a small union town, parish and head of a petty sessional division, pleasantly seated on the river Granta, on the confines of the county, bordering upon Essex, with a station on the Cambridge and Sudbury branch of the Great Eastern Railway, 11 miles south-east from Cambridge, 13 south-west from Newmarket, 6 north from Saffron Walden and 48 from London, in the Eastern division of the county, hundred of Chilford, county court district of Saffron Walden, rural deanery of Camps, second division, and archdeaconry and diocese of Ely. The church of St. Mary is a building of flint and rubble, in the Perpendicular style, consisting of chancel, nave, aisles, north and south porches and an embattled western tower containing a clock and 5 bells: in the aisles are several monuments to the families of Pairs (1551 and 1650), Stanley (1726 and 1780), Millicent (1555 and 1577) and Flack (1693, 1704 and 1705) the chancel and Millicent chapel were restored in 1879 at the expense of Pembroke College, Cambridge, the lay impropriators, a new organ being at the same time erected by the parishioners: a restoration of the church begun in 1887, was completed in 1891, and the total cost, including the chancel, amounted to about £1,400: there are 530 sittings. The register dates from the year 1559. The living is a vicarage, net yearly value £240, including 9 acres of glebe, in the gift of the Bishop of Ely, and held since 1887 by the Rev. John Charles Longe M.A. of Jesus College, Cambridge, and chaplain of Linton Union. Here is a Congregational chapel, erected in 1818 and seating 500 persons, with a graveyard attached; and there are also Salvation Army Barracks and a small Literary Institute. The Beeches, the property and residence of Johann Gottlieb Brinkmann esq. is pleasantly situated and stands in its own grounds of about 7 acres. Harrison's charity of £2 8s. 9d. yearly is for bread. A fair for smallwares, formerly held on Holy Thursday and the sheep fair formerly held on the 20th July are now abolished, and the market once held here has also fallen into disuse. Barham Hall, in this parish, was anciently a priory of Crutched Friars, founded about 1292, as a cell to the convent of St. Jagu de Lisle in Brittany; it is now a farm house. The remains of a Roman villa were discovered in 1825 in a field separated by the river Granta from the site of Barham Priory, and in 1862, when excavating for the railway from Cambridge to Sudbury, the workmen met with the remains of numerous skeletons in this field at a depth of 3 feet from the surface. The principal landowners are Charles Edmund Ruck-Keene esq. J.P. of Swyncombe, Oxon, who is lord of the manor, and the Master and Fellows of Pembroke College, Cambridge, who are also the owners of the rectorial tithes The soil here is principally gravel and chalk; subsoil, chalk. The chief crops are wheat, barley and turnips. The area is 3,806 acres of land and 11 of water; rateable value, £5,557; the population in 1891 was 1,726, including 97 officers and inmates in the workhouse.

Sexton, Jonas Livermore.

Police Station, George Everett, superintendent; 1 sergeant & 8 officers

The Workhouse, erected in 1836, & a short distance from the village, is a structure of brick, available for 317 inmates: there are two fever wards, detached from the main body of the building, but, owing to the salubrity of the air, these are not much used; George Heath, master; Rev. John Charles Longe M.A. chaplain; John A. Nealon B.A., M.D., M.Ch. medical officer; Mrs. S. Heath, matron

SCHOOLS.

National (boys & girls), for 190 children; average attendance, 180 (90 boys & 90 girls); the building was originally a barn, but has been twice enlarged & improved; J. F. Turner, master

Infants', erected in 1875 & enlarged in 1878, for 110 children; average attendance, 110; Mrs. Hall, mistress

Railway Station, Henry H. Kitchin, station master & goods agent.

CARRIERS
. To Cambridge - Alfred Nunn, wed & sat.
To London & all parts - Great Eastern Railway Co.

* Kelly's Directory of Cambridgeshire 1900 (London: Kelly's Directories Limited, 1900), pp.152-153.