Bottisham is a village and
civil parish
In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...
in the
East Cambridgeshire
East Cambridgeshire (locally known as East Cambs) is a local government district in Cambridgeshire, England. Its council is based in Ely. The population of the District Council at the 2011 Census was 83,818. The district was formed on 1 April 19 ...
district of
Cambridgeshire
Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a Counties of England, county in the East of England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and North ...
, England, about east of
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
, halfway to
Newmarket. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 1,983, including
Chittering, increasing to 2,199 at the 2011 Census.
Church
![Bottisham Church](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Bottisham_Church.JPG)
Bottisham has overhanging cottages and the tower of the Church of the Holy Trinity which has some of the finest fourteenth-century work in the county. The tower and the chancel with its stone seats are thirteenth century but the nave and aisles and porches are all from the fourteenth. The south aisle has a stone seat for the priest, a
piscina
A piscina is a shallow basin placed near the altar of a church, or else in the vestry or sacristy, used for washing the communion vessels. The sacrarium is the drain itself. Anglicans usually refer to the basin, calling it a piscina. For Roman ...
, and in its floor an ancient coffin lid. Above the arcades is a
clerestory
In architecture, a clerestory ( ; , also clearstory, clearstorey, or overstorey) is a high section of wall that contains windows above eye level. Its purpose is to admit light, fresh air, or both.
Historically, ''clerestory'' denoted an upper l ...
of fluted
lancet window
A lancet window is a tall, narrow window with a pointed arch at its top. It acquired the "lancet" name from its resemblance to a lance. Instances of this architectural element are typical of Gothic church edifices of the earliest period. Lancet wi ...
s. There is a font and three old screens of the fourteenth century, two of oak and the other of stone, with three delicate open arches before the chancel. There is an iron-bound chest of 1790, and some fragments of carved stones, the oldest being a
Norman
Norman or Normans may refer to:
Ethnic and cultural identity
* The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries
** People or things connected with the Norm ...
tympanum.
A table tomb within the church has the mark of a vanished
monumental brass
A monumental brass is a type of engraved sepulchral memorial, which in the 13th century began to partially take the place of three-dimensional monuments and effigies carved in stone or wood. Made of hard latten or sheet brass, let into the paveme ...
portrait of
Elias de Beckingham
Ellis Beckingham, named Ellis of Beckingham in some sources, (died 1307?) was a parish priest for Warmington, Northamptonshire,Raban, S., "Mortmain in Medieval England", ''Past & Present'' (1974), p. 11. which at the time was under the authorit ...
, who was said to be with one exception the only honest judge in the reign of King
Edward I
Edward I (17/18 June 1239 – 7 July 1307), also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1272 to 1307. Concurrently, he ruled the duchies of Aquitaine and Gascony as a vassal o ...
. Only he and one other were acquitted when every judge was charged by the king with bribery. A sculptured monument of three centuries later (1598/9) shows Margaret (née Coningsby) kneeling behind her second husband, Thomas Pledger, both in black robes and ruffs. Cherubs hold back the curtains of a stone canopy to show two children asleep with flowers in their hands, Leonard and Dorothea Alington (whose family had an estate nearby), of whom the inscription of 1638 tells:
::''These the world's strangers were, not here to dwell''.
::''They tasted, like it not, and bade farewell.''
The east window and a tablet close by are in memory of Colonel Soame Gambier-Jenyns, who rode (as a Captain) down the Valley of Death at
Balaclava, and survived. Other memorials to this family, whose home,
Bottisham Hall
Bottisham Hall is a country house in Bottisham, Cambridgeshire, England.
Built in 1797 for the Reverend George Leonard Jenyns to replace the family's previous home on the same estate,"Bottisham: Manors and other estates", ''A History of the Count ...
, was rebuilt in 1797, show
Sir Roger Jenyns and his wife sitting on their tomb holding hands, with dressing-gowns thrown over their night things as if they had just woken from sleep. Their son,
Soame Jenyns
Soame Jenyns (1 January 1704 – 18 December 1787) was an English writer and Member of Parliament. He was an early advocate of the ethical consideration of animals.
Life and work
He was the eldest son of Sir Roger Jenyns and his second wife El ...
, was for 38 years a
Member of Parliament
A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...
, a keen debater, and is remembered here by angels garlanding an urn.
There are some pictures and a description of the church at the Cambridgeshire Churches website.
The church's page at the Cambridgeshire Churches website
/ref>
Education
Bottisham is one of the group of villages in which the village colleges of Cambridgeshire were originally developed. Opened in 1937, Bottisham Village College
Bottisham Village College is a mixed secondary school located in Bottisham, Cambridgeshire, England. The school opened in 1937 as the second village college in part of the Local Director of Education Henry Morris' vision for providing educatio ...
was the second of Henry Morris' colleges. The first college was built at Sawston
Sawston is a large village in Cambridgeshire in England, situated on the River Cam about south of Cambridge. It has a population of 7,260.
History Prehistory
Although the current village of Sawston has only existed as anything more than a ha ...
in 1930, and the idea of these magnificent buildings is to draw children over eleven from the villages round into an atmosphere in which they will develop a taste and a capacity for rural life and craftsmanship, with facilities for training themselves in whatever career they desire, and with opportunities for practising music or drama, cooking or needlework; the colleges also serve as adult educational and cultural centres — they act as a social focus for the life of the whole community. The buildings at Bottisham are charmingly planned so that all the principal rooms run round a curve and look out onto the playing field. Now, it is more of a community centre and a school.
Housing
The Park Estate makes up just less than half of the houses in Bottisham and was built in the 1960s. The original concept was to have fairly large detached houses, with big open green spaces and a strong community. However, halfway through the development the building firm went out of business and a new one replaced it. This firm added many more houses than planned, more semi-detached and smaller, creating a more compact estate. Despite the changes to the plan it is now a large but open estate, with many community lawns and grassed areas. The estate itself is led by a horse-shoe shape road, Beechwood Avenue, which encloses the housing. At one end is the entrance to Bottisham Primary School, which moved to this location in the late 1970s having previously been next to the village college.
See also
* HMS ''Bottisham'', a Ham class minesweeper
The Ham class was a class of inshore minesweepers (IMS), known as the Type 1, of the British Royal Navy. The class was designed to operate in the shallow water of rivers and estuaries. All of the ships in the class are named for British place nam ...
that was named after the village
*RAF Bottisham
Royal Air Force Bottisham or more simply RAF Bottisham is a former Royal Air Force station located east of Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England.
History
RAF Fighter Command use
RAF Bottisham opened in March 1940 and was first used by bomb-ar ...
, a World War II airfield for the RAF
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...
in the 1940s
*Bottisham and Lode railway station
Bottisham and Lode Railway Station is a disused railway station on the Cambridge to Mildenhall railway in East Anglia, England. The station is located on the northern outskirts of the village of Lode, at the end of Station Road.
The station op ...
, a disused railway station near Lode
References
* Mee, Arthur, ''The King's England'', New revised edition, London, 1965, pps: 32–3.
External links
Captain (later Colonel) Soame Gambier Jenyns and the Charge of the Light Brigade
Bottisham Parish Council
Bottisham Village College Site
Bottisham Primary School Site
{{Authority control
Villages in Cambridgeshire
Civil parishes in Cambridgeshire
East Cambridgeshire District