Orwell is a rural village outside

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

in South

Cambridgeshire Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfor ...

, England. The

Prime Meridian A prime meridian is an arbitrarily chosen meridian (geography), meridian (a line of longitude) in a geographic coordinate system at which longitude is defined to be 0°. On a spheroid, a prime meridian and its anti-meridian (the 180th meridian ...

passes the eastern edge of Orwell.

History

The village of Orwell grew around the well that gave it its name and the Roman road that runs to Cambridge runs alongside the village. Listed in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

of 1086 as ''Ordeuuella'', (''Ord Wella'', in Old English) the village's name means "spring by a pointed hill". The hill in question may be the natural one which lies behind St Andrew's Church. However, it is anything but pointed. There was once a man-made hill near to where the Church now stands, and an old map shows it as being pointed and that a spring emerged from its foot. The date of this hill is not known, but if it was made for a religious purpose then it may well pre-date the Church. There is an old excavation site for

clunch Clunch is a traditional building material of chalky limestone rock used mainly in eastern England and Normandy. Clunch distinguishes itself from archetypal forms of limestone by being softer in character when cut, and may resemble chalk in lowe ...

, a traditional building material, in the side of the hill. It is now overgrown with wild flowers and is grazed by rare breeds of sheep. " The Clunch Pit" has views into three different counties, as the pit places visitors a couple hundred feet above the village below. It also contains a very small cave. The parish is home to Malton Farm, the only remaining part of the former village of Malton which was a separate parish to Orwell until the late 18th century. The oldest surviving houses in the village date from the 16th century. The parish's main commercial activity has always been agriculture, though a

coprolite A coprolite (also known as a coprolith) is fossilized feces. Coprolites are classified as trace fossils as opposed to body fossils, as they give evidence for the animal's behaviour (in this case, diet) rather than morphology. The name ...

mine opened for a brief period at the end of the 19th century, and a brewery was run.

St Andrew's Church

St Andrew's was founded sometime about 1150 AD, however, little of this early church remains. The tower, which was built in 1250, is decorated with

dog-tooth In architecture, a dog-tooth or dogtooth pattern is an ornament found in the mouldings of medieval work of the commencement of the 12th century, which is thought to have been introduced by the Crusaders. The earliest example is found in the ha ...

carving and blind arcading; unfortunately the tower has undergone severe wear over its 850 years, so the arcading has disappeared from the north wall, and much of the tower is patched with brick. The simple nave was rebuilt in the early 14th century, whilst the chancel, built by a bequest from the Rector, Richard Anlaby, is overpowering for the size of the nave. The south aisle dates from the 14th century, whilst the north was re-built using brick in 1883. The simple

misericord A misericord (sometimes named mercy seat, like the biblical object) is a small wooden structure formed on the underside of a folding seat in a church which, when the seat is folded up, is intended to act as a shelf to support a person in a p ...

s date from the early 15th century. These misericords are all simple V shapes, with a small decoration at the base. In the 18th century, the original 1610 clock of Trinity College was donated to village. It was installed in the tower, where it still runs. During the 19th-century restoration a crucifixion sculpture, dating from about 1300, was discovered, this now resides at the east end of the south aisle, and although Mary is missing from it, Christ is shown in his agony on a simple crucifix made from a tree, with St John watching on. The chancel vault was replaced during the 19th century, and the bosses, showing the arms of several county families, and painted in distemper, were recreated from a manuscript housed at

Wimpole Hall Wimpole Estate is a large estate containing Wimpole Hall, a country house located within the civil parish of Wimpole, Cambridgeshire, England, about southwest of Cambridge. The house, begun in 1640, and its of parkland and farmland are owned ...

Village life

The village is often a hub for the smaller villages around, and plays host to events all year round. There were two pubs listed in the village in 1756, rising to seven by 1882. By 1936 there were still six, but by 1970 only The Chequers remained. It remains the village's only pub.

References

External links

Orwell village websiteOrwell's local history.
{{authority control Villages in Cambridgeshire Civil parishes in Cambridgeshire South Cambridgeshire District