Cambridgeshire History On The Net

Information about Yaxley circa 1900

YAXLEY is a parish and village, and is a short distance east of the Great North Road, which joins the London road from Peterborough at Norman Cross, with a station on the main line of the Great Northern railway, 15 1/2 miles north-east from Huntingdon and 4 1/2 south from Peterborough, in the Northern division of the county, hundred and petty sessional division of Norman Cross, union and county court district of Peterborough, rural deanery of Yaxley, archdeanconry of Huntingdon and diocese of Ely. The church of St Peter is a large and noble cruciform structure of rubble with stone dressings, and consists of chancel and nave, both with clerestory, aisles, transepts, south porch and an emba ttled western tower, with pinnacles and octagonal crocketed spire and containing a clock and 6 bells: in 1881 the bells were re-cast, and a treble bell added by John and Sarah Nickolls, late of the Manor house: the pinnacles and spi re are connected by quatrefolied flying buttresses, above which are two tiers of spire-lights: the earliest part of the edifice is Decorated, the remainder being very Late Perpendicular: in the chancel are two large brackets with quasi- embattled canopies and an aumbry: in the south chantry are two piscine, aumbries and brackets: In the north chantry are trefoil graduated sedilia and a piscina, and the walls exhibit in places some good frescoes on a ground of small cinquefoiled flowers: both transepts have aumbries and piscina and there is a stone sculptured in relief with two hands holding a heart, behind which, in a recess a small cylindrical wood box was discovered in 1842, containing a human heart, supposed to have been that if William of Yaxley, abbot of Thorney Abbey, about the end of the 13th century: the door to the roof loft still remains in the chancel arch: the s tained cast window in the south chantry, dated 1849, is a memorial to the Squire family: a lofty Perpendicular oak screen occupies the chancel arch: the font co nsists of an octagonal basin on a Decorated moulded stem: there are 500 sittings. The register dates from the year 1653: some former registers were destroyed by fire in 1735. The living is a vicarage, net yearly value £ 154, with residence, in the gift of the Lord Chancellor, and held since 1804 by the Rev. Edward Howard Brown B.A. of St. John\rquote s College, Cambridge. There are Congregational, Wesleyan, Free Methodist, P rimitive Methodist an Baptist chapels. A cemetery of 1 arce, with a mortuary chapel, was formed in 1884, at a cost of about £700, and is under the control of the parish council. A fair is held here on Holy Tuesday every year. Askew\rquote s charities, the interest of £180 is distributed in kind among the poor at Christmas. R. and E. Marriott's charity of £8 10s yearly is for a sermon and distribution. The Earl of Carysfort K.P. who is lord of the manor, Lord Saye and Sele of Broughton Castle, Banbury, the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and the Rev. George Marsham Argles M.A. canon of York are the principal landowners. T he soil is rich loam; subsoil, strong clay. The chief crops are clover, wheat, barley beans and peas in the high lands and wheat, oats, potatoes and mangel-wurzel in the fen. The area is 4,287 acres of land and 11 of water, assessable value, £ 15,040; the population in 1901 was 1,590.

Norman Cross, is a hamlet, 1 mile south-west, at the junction of the roads from Peterborough and Wansford to Huntingdon; it gives name to a hundred, and the E arls of Carysfort take the name of their English barony of Carysfort of Norman Cross from this place. In the barracks which formerly stood here, about 8,000 French prisoners were imprisoned during the period 1797-1814.

Parish Clerk, James King.

Police Station, Norman Cross, William Allen, superintendent; Yaxley, George Broughton, constable in charge

SCHOOLS

National Endowed (boys), built, with house for master, in 1848, for 120 boys; average attendance, 120; Robert Sewter, master National Endowed (girls & infants), built in 1876, & enlarged 1891, for 270 children; average attendance, 110 girls & 120 infants a house for the mistress was built in 1893; Miss Charlotte Hagger, mistress; Miss Violette Pyman, infants' mistress

The schools are endowed by the Ladies Jane & Frances Proby, with 49 acres of land, now producing £76 yearly

Carriers to Peterborough - William Webster, Wed, & Sat; John Nightingale, Mon. Wed, Thurs. & Sat
Railway station, William Perry, station master

* Kelly's Directory of Huntingdonshire 1903 (London: Kelly's Directories Limited, 1903), pp.71.