Gamlingay
Encyclopedia
Gamlingay is a village
Village
A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...

 and civil parish in South
South Cambridgeshire
South Cambridgeshire is a mostly rural local government district of Cambridgeshire, England. It was formed on 1 April 1974 by the merger of Chesterton Rural District and South Cambridgeshire Rural District. It surrounds the city of Cambridge, which is administered separately from the district by...

 Cambridgeshire
Cambridgeshire
Cambridgeshire is a county in England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the northeast, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire to the west...

, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, near the border with Bedfordshire
Bedfordshire
Bedfordshire is a ceremonial county of historic origin in England that forms part of the East of England region.It borders Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Northamptonshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the west and Hertfordshire to the south-east....

, and the traditional county of Huntingdonshire
Huntingdonshire
Huntingdonshire is a local government district of Cambridgeshire, covering the area around Huntingdon. Traditionally it is a county in its own right...

. It is 14 miles (22 km) from Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...

 and the population in 2001 was 3,535 people.

History

An ancient village featured in the Domesday Book
Domesday Book
Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...

, the name comes from the Old English
Old English language
Old English or Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and southeastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century...

 Gamelingei, meaning "an enclosure of Gamela's people".

There has been a settlement on the site since the middle Bronze Age
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...

 and there are signs of occupation from the middle Stone Age
Stone Age
The Stone Age is a broad prehistoric period, lasting about 2.5 million years , during which humans and their predecessor species in the genus Homo, as well as the earlier partly contemporary genera Australopithecus and Paranthropus, widely used exclusively stone as their hard material in the...

. The village may have first been established around a central green
Village green
A village green is a common open area which is a part of a settlement. Traditionally, such an area was often common grass land at the centre of a small agricultural settlement, used for grazing and sometimes for community events...

 south of the High Street (now known as Church Street); a complex of medieval buildings stood at the east end of the green, but only a tithe barn
Tithe barn
A tithe barn was a type of barn used in much of northern Europe in the Middle Ages for storing the tithes - a tenth of the farm's produce which had to be given to the church....

 and the house known as 'Emplins' remain today. Another focal point was provided by the crossroads at the other end of Church Street and houses spread to the south and east of the junction. In the 16th and 17th centuries, Gamlingay grew to the east towards Dutter End and west to Green End. By 1801, Gamlingay had a population twice as large as that of the hundred's second-largest parish, Bourn
Bourn
Bourn is a small village and civil parish in South Cambridgeshire, England. Surrounding villages include Caxton, Eltisley and Cambourne. It is 8 miles from the county town of Cambridge. The population of the parish was 1,764 people at the time of the 2001 census.Bourn has a Church of England...

. Among the famous residents of Gamlingay are Sienna Miller, and the late Keith Moon.

Gamlingay is steeped in history, with many listed buildings in the village. The stone for building the church was from a quarry within the village. This quarry then offered the perfect location for an archery range. Being dug into the ground it was a safe area where archery could be practiced, and thus was named 'The Butts'. In medieval times it was a requirement that all men over a certain age were capable of using a bow and arrow. The Butts is now a children's play area.

Throughout history, Gamlingay has been a farming village. Most of the village was owned by the Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

 college Merton, and the Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...

 colleges Downing
Downing College, Cambridge
Downing College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1800 and currently has around 650 students.- History :...

 and Clare
Clare College, Cambridge
Clare College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England.The college was founded in 1326, making it the second-oldest surviving college of the University after Peterhouse. Clare is famous for its chapel choir and for its gardens on "the Backs"...

. Until a few years ago, the houses (subdivisions) at the local village college were named after Merton, Downing and Clare.

In 1600, 64 houses- comprising much of the village – were destroyed in the "Great Fire of Gamlingay", as described in an extract of a letter from the Privy Council
Privy Council of the United Kingdom
Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, usually known simply as the Privy Council, is a formal body of advisers to the Sovereign in the United Kingdom...

 to Sir Thomas Egerton:

"Whereas divers of the Justices of the Peace in the coutitie of Cambridge have certyfied us the lamentable accydent that bath fallen upon the inhabitantes of Gamlingay in the said countie, by casualltie of fire that happned on the 21St daie of Aprill last, whereby the moste parte of the said towne to the nomber of 76 houses with divers barnes and stackes of corne were suddainlie consumed."

By 1844, Gamlingay had five inns, including the Cock (dating from at least 1588), the Rose & Crown (1622) and the Blue Ball (1770s). The Sultan was built near the station in 1867. At one time, there were 54 pubs in Gamlingay to serve the coach routes from London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. It is thought that Dick Turpin
Dick Turpin
Richard "Dick" Turpin was an English highwayman whose exploits were romanticised following his execution in York for horse theft. Turpin may have followed his father's profession as a butcher early in life, but by the early 1730s he had joined a gang of deer thieves, and later became a poacher,...

 rode through the village on his way North.

Gamlingay had a station
Gamlingay railway station
Gamlingay was a railway station on the Varsity Line which served the small village of the same name in Cambridgeshire. Opened in 1862, the station was located in a rural area and saw little passenger traffic; it closed together with the line in 1968....

 on the Bedford and Cambridge branch
Varsity Line
The Varsity Line is an informal name for the railway route that formerly linked the English university cities of Oxford and Cambridge, operated successively by the London and North Western Railway, the London, Midland and Scottish Railway, and British Railways...

 of the London and North Western Railway
London and North Western Railway
The London and North Western Railway was a British railway company between 1846 and 1922. It was created by the merger of three companies – the Grand Junction Railway, the London and Birmingham Railway and the Manchester and Birmingham Railway...

, which opened in 1862 and shut in 1968 in the Beeching cuts
Beeching Axe
The Beeching Axe or the Beeching Cuts are informal names for the British Government's attempt in the 1960s to reduce the cost of running British Railways, the nationalised railway system in the United Kingdom. The name is that of the main author of The Reshaping of British Railways, Dr Richard...

.

Governance

There are 15 councillors on Gamlingay Parish Council. The parish is represented on South Cambridgeshire District Council
South Cambridgeshire District Council
South Cambridgeshire District Council is the local authority for the district of South Cambridgeshire in Cambridgeshire, England. Based in Cambourne, it forms the lower part of the two tier system of local government in the district, below Cambridgeshire County Council...

 by two councillors for the Gamlingay ward and on Cambridgeshire County Council
Cambridgeshire County Council
Cambridgeshire County Council is the county council of Cambridgeshire, England. The council currently consists of 69 councillors, representing 60 electoral divisions. The Conservative Party has a majority on the council, having gained control in the 1997 local elections...

 by one councillor for the Gamlingay electoral division. It is in the parliamentary constituency of South Cambridgeshire
South Cambridgeshire
South Cambridgeshire is a mostly rural local government district of Cambridgeshire, England. It was formed on 1 April 1974 by the merger of Chesterton Rural District and South Cambridgeshire Rural District. It surrounds the city of Cambridge, which is administered separately from the district by...

, represented at the House of Commons by Andrew Lansley
Andrew Lansley
Andrew David Lansley, CBE, MP is the UK Secretary of State for Health, who has been the Conservative Member of Parliament for South Cambridgeshire since the 1997 general election, and was Shadow Secretary of State for Health from June 2004 until becoming Secretary of State for Health in May 2010...

.

Geography

Gamlingay is 14 miles (22 km) west of the county town of Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...

, five miles (9 km) south-east of St Neots
St Neots
St Neots is a town and civil parish with a population of 26,356 people. It lies on the River Great Ouse in Huntingdonshire District, approximately north of central London, and is the largest town in Cambridgeshire . The town is named after the Cornish monk St...

 and 45 miles (72 km) north of London. It is north of the small town of Potton
Potton
Potton is a town and civil parish in Bedfordshire, England. It is 10 miles from Bedford and the population in 2001 was 4,473 people. In 1783 the 'Great Fire of Potton' destroyed a large part of the town. The parish church dates from the 13th Century and is dedicated to St Mary...

 and south-west of Waresley
Waresley
Waresley is on the B1040 road between Gamlingay and Eltisley, five miles south-east of the town of St Neots and seven miles north-east of Sandy, Bedfordshire, England...

. The parish ranges from 39 metres (along the Millbridge Brook) to 73 metres (near Potton Wood
Potton Wood
Potton Wood covers an area of 85ha and is two miles east of the small town of Potton in the county of Bedfordshire, England. It is part of Ampthill Forest and is managed by Forest Enterprise and owned by the Forestry Commission....

) above sea level. The village is at around 50 metres. Most of the central parish is on the Lower Greensand; the soil in the eastern part of the parish is clay with gault subsoil.

By the 12th century, heathland
Heath (habitat)
A heath or heathland is a dwarf-shrub habitat found on mainly low quality acidic soils, characterised by open, low growing woody vegetation, often dominated by plants of the Ericaceae. There are some clear differences between heath and moorland...

 had developed on the Lower Greensand and the poor drainage of the soil there meant there were two quaking bogs, on Gamlingay Heath (drained in 1855) and Cinques Common. Treeplanting and pig rearing after inclosure in 1844 altered the landscape.

In addition to Gamlingay village, the parish includes outlying areas named Gamlingay Cinques, Gamlingay Great Heath and Little Heath. Woodbury used to be in the parish but was transferred to Bedfordshire
Bedfordshire
Bedfordshire is a ceremonial county of historic origin in England that forms part of the East of England region.It borders Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Northamptonshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the west and Hertfordshire to the south-east....

 in 1965 and a hamlet named Newton on the Heath had disappeared by 1279.

Demography

At the time of the 2001 census, Gamlingay parish had 3,535 inhabitants living in 1,410 households. The ethnic group of 99% was white, with 0.4% Asian or Asian British, 0.1% black or Black British, 0.3% mixed and 0.2% other. 77% were Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

, 0.3% followed another religion and 22% cited 'no religion' or did not state one.

Economy

Gamlingay is now largely a commuter village: 44% of its employed residents work outside of Cambridgeshire
Cambridgeshire
Cambridgeshire is a county in England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the northeast, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire to the west...

, 30% more than 20 km away and 11% more than 40 km away.

Farming, mainly arable, was the primary employer in Gamlingay for many centuries. A third of the parish was cultivated in 1801, with wheat the main crop, then barley and peas. In 1937, there were 12 smallholders and 11 market gardeners. There was some gravel extraction south of the village in the late 19th century; in 1864 the village had three brickworks. In 1912, one occupied an area of 31 acres (12.5 hectares), with 12 kilns and a warehouse capable of holding 500,000 bricks. The closure of the brick and tile works probably caused the parish's population to fall in the after its sale in 1920.

Landmarks

A war memorial, built from Cornish granite, stands outside Gamlingay Village College
Gamlingay Village College
-External links:*...

 and commemorates men from the village who died in the First and Second World Wars.

Two timber-framed buildings in the village date from the late 15th or early 16th centuries: Emplins, a large house near the church, and Merton Manor Farm. A total of 60 buildings in Gamlingay parish are listed, including the Baptist chapel on Stocks Lane, Merton Grange, the Cock Inn, a red telephone box
Red telephone box
The red telephone box, a public telephone kiosk designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, is a familiar sight on the streets of the United Kingdom, Malta, Bermuda and Gibraltar, and despite a reduction in their numbers in recent years, red boxes can still be seen in many places and in current or former...

 outside the church, and many buildings along Church Street.

Transport

The B1040 road runs through Gamlingay from Potton
Potton
Potton is a town and civil parish in Bedfordshire, England. It is 10 miles from Bedford and the population in 2001 was 4,473 people. In 1783 the 'Great Fire of Potton' destroyed a large part of the town. The parish church dates from the 13th Century and is dedicated to St Mary...

 to the A14 near Hilton
Hilton, Cambridgeshire
Hilton is a village in Cambridgeshire, East Anglia, England, about 11 miles northwest of Cambridge. The parish adjoins the parishes of Elsworth, Fenstanton, Hemingford Abbots, Hemingford Grey, Papworth Everard and Papworth St Agnes...

; minor roads lead to Hatley
Hatley, Cambridgeshire
Hatley is a civil parish in South Cambridgeshire, England. It lies between the villages of Gamlingay and Croydon, 12 miles south-west of the city of Cambridge and eight miles south-east of the town of St Neots...

, Everton
Everton, Bedfordshire
Everton is a small village and civil parish located in north Bedfordshire, England. Everton has no shop but is home to a pub, local church, and a lower school...

 and Little Gransden
Little Gransden
Little Gransden is 11 miles from the county town of Cambridgeshire, 10 miles south-east of Huntingdon and 47 miles north of London. The village stands on the B1046 road between Abbotsley, to the west, and Longstowe, to the east. A minor road runs south-west to Gamlingay...

. The nearest railway station is at Sandy, Bedfordshire
Sandy, Bedfordshire
Sandy is a small market town and civil parish in Bedfordshire, England. It is between Cambridge and Bedford, and on the A1 road from London to Edinburgh. The area is dominated by a range of hills known as the Sand Hills. The River Ivel runs through Sandy. The dedication of the Anglican church is to...

. Buses run from Gamlingay to destinations including Cambridge, St Neots
St Neots
St Neots is a town and civil parish with a population of 26,356 people. It lies on the River Great Ouse in Huntingdonshire District, approximately north of central London, and is the largest town in Cambridgeshire . The town is named after the Cornish monk St...

, Great Gransden
Great Gransden
Great Gransden parish is west of the county town of Cambridge, south-east of Huntingdon and north of London. It covers an area of . The village stands on the B1046 road between Abbotsley, to the west, and Longstowe, to the east...

, Little Paxton
Little Paxton
Shittle Paxton in Cambridgeshire, England is a village near Great Paxton north of St Neots. It is in the district and historic county of Huntingdonshire. Until the 1970s it was a minor village and the church was under threat of closure...

 and Sandy.

Education

Children aged 4–9 years are educated at Gamlingay First School; Gamlingay Village College
Gamlingay Village College
-External links:*...

 takes pupils aged from 9-13 and also offers adult education classes and library services. The nearest secondary schools are Sandy Upper School
Sandy Upper School
Sandy Upper School and Community Sports College is an upper school located in Sandy, Bedfordshire, England.The school educates 13 - 16 year olds, mainly from the town of Sandy and some surrounding villages. In addition, the school offers further education for 16 - 18 year olds through its Sixth...

 and Stratton Upper School
Stratton Upper School
Stratton Upper School and Community College is a notable upper school located in Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, England. It is situated to the east of the town...

, Biggleswade
Biggleswade
Biggleswade is a market town and civil parish located on the River Ivel in Bedfordshire, England. It is well served by transport routes, being close to the A1 road between London and the North, as well as having a railway station on the main rail link North from London .-Geography:Located about 40...

.

Religious sites

Gamlingay has a church dedicated to St Mary the Virgin. It was built around the 12th century in the Early English style with a square tower (now containing eight bells) from field stones and local ironstone
Ironstone
Ironstone is a sedimentary rock, either deposited directly as a ferruginous sediment or created by chemical repacement, that contains a substantial proportion of an iron compound from which iron either can be or once was smelted commercially. This term is customarily restricted to hard coarsely...

. A church existed in the parish before 1120. Gamlingay is part of the ecclesiastical parish of Gamlingay with Hatley St George and East Hatley.

The village's first Baptist church was formed in 1670. Its first recorded minister was John Bunyan
John Bunyan
John Bunyan was an English Christian writer and preacher, famous for writing The Pilgrim's Progress. Though he was a Reformed Baptist, in the Church of England he is remembered with a Lesser Festival on 30 August, and on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church on 29 August.-Life:In 1628,...

 the author of the Pilgrim's Progress. In the beginning the church, which was originally known as Gamlingay Old Meeting, was a daughter congregation of Bunyan Meeting at Bedford, becoming independent in 1710. The meeting house was also built in 1710. It was rebuilt in 1840 and restored in 1881. The church was renamed Gamlingay Baptist Church in the 1990s and they continue to meet at 10.45 every Sunday.

There was also an Anglican mission church at Gamlingay Heath dedicated to St Sylvester, originally constructed in iron in 1879, which closed in the 1980s.

A congregation of Particular Baptists worshipped at a chapel known as Zoar, built around 1800 at Gamlingay Cinques; it was demolished in the mid-1960s. A Primitive Methodist chapel was built at Green End in 1855.

Community amenities

Local amenities include pubs, shops, sports fields, a community centre, clubs and societies, nursery schools and a Grade II listed telephone box.

Further reading

  • James Brown, Gamlingay: Six Hundred Years of Life in an English Village (London: Cassell, 1989)

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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