Stow Longa 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 ...

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. Stow Longa lies approximately west of

Huntingdon Huntingdon is a market town in the Huntingdonshire district in Cambridgeshire, England. The town was given its town charter by King John in 1205. It was the county town of the historic county of Huntingdonshire. Oliver Cromwell was born there ...

and two miles north of Kimbolton. Stow Longa is situated within

Huntingdonshire Huntingdonshire (; abbreviated Hunts) is a non-metropolitan district of Cambridgeshire and a historic county of England. The district council is based in Huntingdon. Other towns include St Ives, Godmanchester, St Neots and Ramsey. The popul ...

which is a

non-metropolitan district Non-metropolitan districts, or colloquially "shire districts", are a type of local government district in England. As created, they are sub-divisions of non-metropolitan counties (colloquially ''shire counties'') in a two-tier arrangement. Non-m ...

of Cambridgeshire as well as being a historic county of England. Stow Longa's original name was Stow or Long Stow, which comes from the Old English word ''stōw'' (meaning 'holy place') and the Latin word ''longa'' or Old English ''lang'' (meaning 'long'). Altogether, Stow Longa's name may mean 'the long holy place' or 'an extended settlement which is a holy place', though this is only a rough guess. Stow was also thought to have been the name of the pre-Conquest estate, which, in the medieval period, was split between two parishes: one, Over Stow or Upper Stow, the western part, which belonged to the Kimbolton parish, and the other, Estou (also Nether Stow or Long Stow), the eastern part, which was part of the soke of Spaldwick. Mistakenly described as a

hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...

, it has the suitable number of houses and businesses to make it a village. Stow Longa is a village that is still void of any street lamps, village shops, a school or a public house. Sewer drainage came to the village in 2009. However, Stow Longa does possess several thatched cottages, a village room, a blocked-up well (on the

village green A village green is a commons, common open area within a village or other settlement. Historically, a village green was common pasture, grassland with a pond for watering cattle and other stock, often at the edge of a rural settlement, used for ...

), a stone cross (discussed below) and mature elm trees that survived the

Dutch elm disease Dutch elm disease (DED) is caused by a member of the sac fungi (Ascomycota) affecting elm trees, and is spread by elm bark beetles. Although believed to be originally native to Asia, the disease was accidentally introduced into Americas, America ...

crisis.

RAF Kimbolton RAF Kimbolton is a former Royal Air Force station located west of Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, England. History USAAF use The airfield was originally built in 1941 for RAF Bomber Command, then expanded to Class A airfield standards for use b ...

was opened as a bomber airfield on the southern edge of the village in 1941, and was operated by the

USAAF The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

from 1942 to 1945. According to a locally published collection of short stories, 'Ploughing Songs' by Damian Croft, the reason why the public houses that were in Stow Longa were closed down in the 1950s was because, "returning drovers used it to give a bad name to a few otherwise nameless women."

Early history

Before it was transferred to the Spaldwick parish in AD 991, the Stow estate had belonged to Brithnoth,

Ealdorman Ealdorman (, ) was a term in Anglo-Saxon England which originally applied to a man of high status, including some of royal birth, whose authority was independent of the king. It evolved in meaning and in the eighth century was sometimes applied ...

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

, who died at the

Battle of Maldon The Battle of Maldon took place on 11 August 991 AD near Maldon beside the River Blackwater in Essex, England, during the reign of Æthelred the Unready. Earl Byrhtnoth and his thegns led the English against a Viking invasion. The battle ...

in AD 991. Brithnoth left his two estates, Spaldwick and Somersham, to the

Abbot of Ely The Bishop of Ely is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Ely in the Province of Canterbury. The diocese roughly covers the county of Cambridgeshire (with the exception of the Soke of Peterborough), together with a section of north- ...

Government

For Stow Longa the highest tier of local government is

Cambridgeshire County Council Cambridgeshire County Council is the county council of Cambridgeshire, England. The council consists of 61 councillors, representing 59 electoral divisions. The council is based at New Shire Hall at Alconbury Weald, near Huntingdon. It is a mem ...

. Stow Longa is part of the electoral division of ''Sawtry and Ellington'', and is represented on the county council by one councillor. The second tier of local government is

Huntingdonshire District Council Huntingdonshire District Council is the local authority for the district of Huntingdonshire in Cambridgeshire, England. Based in Huntingdon, it forms the lower part of the two tier system of local government in the district, below Cambridgeshire ...

, a

of Cambridgeshire. Stow Longa is a part of the district ward of ''Ellington'' and is represented on the district council by one councillor. As a civil parish, Stow Longa has a parish council. On 1 April 1955 the parish was renamed from "Stow" to "Stow Longa". Stow Longa was in the historic and

administrative county An administrative county was a first-level administrative division in England and Wales from 1888 to 1974, and in Ireland from 1899 until either 1973 (in Northern Ireland) or 2002 (in the Republic of Ireland). They are now abolished, although mos ...

of Huntingdonshire until 1965. From 1965, the village was part of the new administrative county of

Huntingdon and Peterborough Huntingdon and Peterborough was a short-lived administrative and geographical county in East Anglia in the United Kingdom. It existed from 1965 to 1974, when it became part of Cambridgeshire. Formation The Local Government Act 1888 created fo ...

. Then in 1974, following the

Local Government Act 1972 The Local Government Act 1972 (c. 70) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed local government in England and Wales on 1 April 1974. It was one of the most significant Acts of Parliament to be passed by the Heath Gov ...

, Stow Longa became a part of the county of Cambridgeshire. At Westminster Stow Longa is in the parliamentary constituency of North West Cambridgeshire, and has been represented since 2005 in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

Shailesh Vara Shailesh Lakhman Vara (born 4 September 1960) is a Ugandan-British politician, who served as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland from July to September 2022. A member of the Conservative Party, he has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) ...

(

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...

Demography

Population

In the period 1801 to 1901 the population of Stow Longa was recorded every ten years by the

UK census Coincident full censuses have taken place in the different jurisdictions of the United Kingdom every ten years since 1801, with the exceptions of 1941 (during the Second World War), Ireland in 1921/Northern Ireland in 1931,https://www.nisra.gov. ...

. During this time the population was in the range of 96 (the lowest was in 1901) and 263 (the highest was in 1841). From 1901, a census was taken every ten years with the exception of 1941 (due to the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

). All population census figures from report ''Historic Census figures Cambridgeshire to 2011'' by ''Cambridgeshire Insight''. In 2011, the parish covered an area of and the population density of Stow Longa in 2011 was 90.3 persons per square mile (34.9 per square kilometre).

Stow Longa's church

The

Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * Chris ...

of Stow Longa is known as St Botolph's, since it is dedicated to St Botolph, which dates to the 13th century, though a stone slab with inter-laced works (probably pre-Conquest) on the south-side indicates an earlier date. Though peaceful and fairly hidden today, the church in Stow Longa has had a remarkable history. Stow Longa was confirmed a

prebend A prebendary is a member of the Roman Catholic or Anglican clergy, a form of canon with a role in the administration of a cathedral or collegiate church. When attending services, prebendaries sit in particular seats, usually at the back of the ...

Pope Eugene III Pope Eugene III ( la, Eugenius III; c. 1080 – 8 July 1153), born Bernardo Pignatelli, or possibly Paganelli, called Bernardo da Pisa, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 15 February 1145 to his death in 1153. He w ...

on 6 February 1146, and again by

Pope Alexander III Pope Alexander III (c. 1100/1105 – 30 August 1181), born Roland ( it, Rolando), was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 7 September 1159 until his death in 1181. A native of Siena, Alexander became pope after a con ...

on 5 January 1163.Richardson, A, ''The Ecclesiastical Peculiars of Huntingdonshire 1660-1825'' (Huntingdon, 2007). A minster or mother-church of the local estate (which included Stow Longa, Spaldwick, Easton, Little Catworth, Barham and Upthorpe) before its importance was subsumed by Spaldwick and Kimbolton, St Botolph's wealth and importance attracted noted figures to the prebendary, such as

Thomas Wolsey Thomas Wolsey ( – 29 November 1530) was an English statesman and Catholic bishop. When Henry VIII became King of England in 1509, Wolsey became the king's almoner. Wolsey's affairs prospered and by 1514 he had become the controlling figur ...

, who was Stow Longa's prebend from 1509 to 1514. Above the priest door, outside the east side of the church, is the nationally important stone carving known as the Mermaid Stone (or the Beckoning Mermaid Stone), since the engraving displays a mermaid between two creatures. According to one source, the creature on the right of the mermaid represents the crocodile (a creature of damnation) and the creature on the left of the mermaid, though on our right, represents the lamb, i.e. the Lamb of God (Jesus Christ). An alternative interpretation of the Mermaid Stone could be: *Sins – the mermaid represents the sin of lust, whilst going in the direction of the beast on her right (representing hell) and turning her back against the beast on her left (representing the Kingdom of God). *Anti-Paganism – even though this interpretation has no real backup, the Mermaid Stone may represent (based on the fact that a stream passes by the church) the struggle between Goddess worship (who may be either a river deity or whose attributes are scorned as lustful) – going towards Hell and leaving Christ – and the emerging Christian religion.

The village green cross

The common misinterpretation of the cross is that it was a marker point of where the coffin of Catherine of Aragon rested, after she died at nearby Kimbolton Castle: actually, the cross is Medieval and pre-dates its supposed use.

References

External links

{{authority control Villages in Cambridgeshire Huntingdonshire Civil parishes in Cambridgeshire