Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for WHITTLESEY

WHITTLESEY, a town, two parishes, and a district, in Cambridge. The town stands on the Old Nen river, adjacent to the Peterborough, March, and Ely railway, 5½ miles E by S of Peterborough; was known, at Domesday, as Witesie; underwent much recent improvement; is a seat of petty-sessions, and a polling place; and has a post-office‡ under Peterborough, a r. station with telegraph, two banking offices, a hotel and several inns, a town hall, reading and newsrooms, a fine ancient church of different dates restored in 1862, another ancient church chiefly decorated English, five dissenting chapels, two endowed schools with £16 and £20 a year, a workhouse, town lands £309, general charities £169, a weekly market on Friday, and fairs on 25 January, 13 June, and 26 Oct. Pop. in 1861, 4,496. Houses, 1,087.-The parishes are St. Mary and St. Andrew; they have long lost their mutual boundaries, so as to be now intermixed; and they include the hamlet and chapelry of Coates, and the hamlet of Eastrea. Acres, 25,131. Real property, £57,136. Pop. in 1851, 7,687; in 1861, 6,966. Houses, 1,592. The manor belongs to J. W. Childers, Esq. Traces of a Roman road are at Eldernell; and several antiquities, including a massive gold ring, have been found there. The livings of St. Mary and St. Andrew are vicarages in the diocese of Ely. Value of St. M., £222; of St. A., £490. Patron of St. M., J. W. Childers, Esq.; of St. A., the Lord Chancellor. The living of Coates was formerly a p. curacy, but is now a rectory; and it has been separately noticed. A small new church is at Ponders-Bridge; and Wesleyan chapels are at Coates and Eastrea.—The district is conterminate with the two parishes. Poor rates in 1863, £5,606. Marriages in 1863, 56; births, 257,-of which 24 were illegitimate; deaths, 134,-of which 50 were at ages under 5 years, and 5 at ages above 85. Marriages in the ten years 1851-60, 518; births, 2,768: deaths, 1,653. The places of worship, in 1851, were 4 of the Church of England, with 2,625 sittings; 1 of Independents, with 300 s.; 2 of Baptists, with 640 s.; 3 of Wesleyans, with 498 s.; 1 of Primitive Methodists, with 70 s.; and 1 of Wesleyan Reformers, with 150 s. The schools were 3 public day-schools, with 467 scholars; 29 private day-schools, with 594 s.; and 10 Sunday schools, with 680 s.


(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a town, two parishes, and a district"   (ADL Feature Type: "cities")
Administrative units: Whittlesey CP       Whittlesey RegD/PLU       Cambridgeshire AncC
Place names: WHITTLESEY     |     WITESIE
Place: Whittlesey

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