Papworth Everard is the name of a village in
CambridgeshireCambridgeshire 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...
,
EnglandEngland 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 and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. It lies ten miles west of
CambridgeThe 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. It is also at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen....
and six miles south of
HuntingdonHuntingdon is a market town in the county of Cambridgeshire in East Anglia, England. The town was chartered by King John in 1205. It was formerly the county town of Huntingdonshire, and is currently the seat of the Huntingdonshire district council...
, having along its centre
Ermine StreetErmine Street is the name of a major Roman road in England that ran from London to Lincoln and York . The Old English name was 'Earninga Straete' , named after a tribe called the Earningas, who inhabited a district later known as Armingford Hundred, around Arrington,Cambridgeshire and Royston,...
, the old North Road, the
RomanThe Roman roads were essential for the growth of the Roman Empire. Roman roads enabled the Romans to move armies and trade goods and to communicate news. The Roman road system spanned more than 250,000 miles of roads, including more than 50,000 miles of paved roads...
highway that for centuries served as a major artery from
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
to
YorkYork is a walled city, situated at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. The city has a rich heritage and has provided the backdrop to major political events throughout much of its two millennia of existence....
, which is now the
A1198The A1198 is a road in Cambridgeshire, England, following the route of Ermine Street between the A505 at Royston, Hertfordshire and Godmanchester, near Huntingdon. The road was known as the A14 until the mid 1990s when the number was changed upon completion of the current A14....
. A bypass now means that most traffic can avoid Ermine Street, and it is comprehensively traffic-calmed.
Today, Papworth Everard is a large village with a thriving community, home to substantial light industry and local business. It is also the centre for the Papworth Trust, a charity which offers housing and training to the disabled, and, most famously of all,
Papworth HospitalPapworth Hospital is a world-famous heart and lung hospital in Cambridgeshire, England. It was home to the first successful heart transplant in the UK and one of the world's first beating-heart transplants.-History:...
, renowned in the field of
cardiologyCardiology is a specialty dealing with disorders of the heart and blood vessels. The field includes diagnosis and treatment of congenital heart defects, coronary artery disease, heart failure, valvular heart disease and electrophysiology. Physicians specializing in this field of medicine are...
.
History
Before the Romans it is probable that there was some
Bronze AgeThe Bronze Age of a culture is the period when the most advanced metalworking in that culture utilised bronze. This could either have been based on the local smelting of copper and tin from ores, or trading for bronze from production areas elsewhere...
settlement in the areaa but when the Great North Road was built in 1 CE it is unlikely that there was anything we would now recognise as a village there. Roman rule collapsed in Britain in 410 CE. It was at least another two or three centuries before a Saxon immigrant leader, probably called 'Papa', established a small settlement about a quarter of a mile to the west of Ermine Street around the site of the present parish church Papworth means "the enclosure of Papa's people": they were also involved in establishing Papworth St Agnes and Papley Grove.
Following the Norman conquest of 1066 the village and land of Papworth were granted by the new king to a
NormanNorman dynasty is the usual designation for the English monarchs which immediately followed the Norman conquest and lasted until the Plantagenet dynasty came to power in 1154. It included William the Conqueror and his heirs down through 1135...
knight, Everard De Beche, from whose name the second element of the village's name is derived.
Sport and recreation
Papworth Everard is fortunate to have an open air paddling pool in its park which is popular in the summer with children. This facility is unusual in the region and particular to Papworth.
Papworth Everard has a
King George's Field in memorial to
King George VGeorge V was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 1910 through World War I until his death in 1936...
. Adjacent to the playing fields are a bowling green (currently in the process of renovation) and a series of all weather, floodlit tennis courts.
Local Facilities & Services
Papworth Everard is served by a variety of local services, primarily based in the central location of Pendrill Court, between Chequers Lane and Ermine Street. This area is adjacent to the playing fields and so provides a central hub for the village. In addition to a combined pharmacy and doctors' surgery (on Chequers Lane) the village center contains a convenience store incorporating a Post Office, a veterinary surgery, a coffee shop, a unisex hair salon, an estate agent and a library.