Stretham
[Locally, the is a ]glottal stop
The glottal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents thi ...
: or even 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 ...
south-south-west of
Ely Ely or ELY may refer to:
Places Ireland
* Éile, a medieval kingdom commonly anglicised Ely
* Ely Place, Dublin, a street
United Kingdom
* Ely, Cambridgeshire, a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, England
** Ely Cathedral
Ely Cathedral, formal ...
in
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 by road from London. Its main attraction is
Stretham Old Engine
Stretham Old Engine is a steam-powered engine just south of Stretham in Cambridgeshire, England, that was used to pump water from flood-affected areas of The Fens back into the River Great Ouse. It is one of only three surviving drainage engines ...
, a
steam-powered
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be tra ...
pump used to drain the fens. The pump is still in use today although converted to electric power. It has open days throughout the year.
History
![Granta Fen Torque](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/Granta_Fen_Torque.jpg)
A
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...
hoard consisting of gold jewellery including a torque, bracelet, six ribbed-rings as well as a bronze
rapier
A rapier () or is a type of sword with a slender and sharply-pointed two-edged blade that was popular in Western Europe, both for civilian use (dueling and self-defense) and as a military side arm, throughout the 16th and 17th centuries.
Impor ...
was discovered in Granta Fen near Stretham in 1850. Dating to between 1300 and 1000 BC, the torque is in the
Hunt Museum
The Hunt Museum ( ga, Iarsmalann Hunt) is a museum in the city of Limerick, Ireland. The Hunt Museum holds a personal collection donated by the Hunt family, it was originally situated in the University of Limerick, before being moved to its pr ...
in Limerick while the remainder of the treasure is in the
British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
.
![Stretham Cross, Cambridgeshire](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/Stretham_Cross%2C_Cambridgeshire.jpg)
Stretham means ''homestead or village on the road'' (possibly
Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
);
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
''strata'' for paved road or
old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
''ystrad'' for road plus old English ''ham'' for village. The route of the Roman road from Cambridge is uncertain beyond Waterbeach.
Brythnoth (the first Abbot of the Benedictine monastery at
Ely Abbey
Ely Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, is an Anglican cathedral in the city of Ely, Cambridgeshire, England.
The cathedral has its origins in AD 672 when St Etheldreda built an abbey church. The pres ...
) and
Æthelwold Æthelwold was a common Anglo Saxon name. It may refer to: Royalty and nobility
*King Æthelwold of Deira, King of Deira, d. 655
*King Æthelwold of East Anglia, King of East Anglia, d. 664
*King Æthelwold Moll of Northumbria, King of Northumbria, ...
(Bishop of Winchester) purchased the Stretham estate, among others including
Haddenham,
Wilburton
Wilburton is a small village of just over 1,000 inhabitants, situated in Cambridgeshire, England. It is 6 miles south west of Ely. While nominally an agricultural village, many of the inhabitants work in Cambridge, Ely or London.
History
Wilbu ...
and
Witchford
Witchford is a village and civil parish about west of Ely, Cambridgeshire, England. The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 2,385.
History Anglo-Saxon cemetery
When the site of RAF Witchford was being cleared a bulldozer driver ...
, after the restoration of the monastery in 970 with the encouragement of
King Edgar.
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 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...
records the village as "Stradham: Abbot of Ely. Fisheries."
Several fires have occurred in the village. In 1696 damage assessed at ÂŁ2,170 was caused and a general collection was made. A more serious fire broke out on May Day 1844 in a hovel next to the blacksmith's shop. The whole of 'Bell Street' was destroyed and ÂŁ20,000 worth of damage was caused. There was no engine in the village. About two o'clock the Haddenham engine arrived, and good use made of it, under the most active and energetic directions of the Rev. S. Banks, incumbent of Haddenham may be attributed the saving of a great part of the village. A fire of a similar character occurred in Stretham seventy-three years earlier, going over very nearly the same ground. This occurred early on a Sunday morning in May 1771, and in a short time consumed four houses, a malting and a barn, causing considerable losses for the owners.
In the autumn of 1850 four fires, the work of incendiaries, occurred at Stretham in as many weeks, "by which property to a large amount was sacrificed." A detective from London made investigations, but the culprit was not discovered.
In the September 1850 fire it was reported that the Red Lion Inn had been totally consumed.
The Stretham steam pumping engine, built in 1831 by Butterley Company, was one of the largest beam engines in
the Fens
The Fens, also known as the , in eastern England are a naturally marshy region supporting a rich ecology and numerous species. Most of the fens were drained centuries ago, resulting in a flat, dry, low-lying agricultural region supported by a ...
; at 15 rpm it generated 105 horsepower lifting 30 tons of water per revolution, or 450 tons per minute.
The village was the site of an
observation post
An observation post (commonly abbreviated OP), temporary or fixed, is a position from which soldiers can watch enemy movements, to warn of approaching soldiers (such as in trench warfare), or to direct fire. In strict military terminology, an ...
of the
Royal Observer Corps
The Royal Observer Corps (ROC) was a civil defence organisation intended for the visual detection, identification, tracking and reporting of aircraft over Great Britain. It operated in the United Kingdom between 29 October 1925 and 31 December ...
, in use during the
Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
from 1962 to 1968. The post is situated near the windmill, which also served as an aircraft post from 1936.
The river floods that began in mid-March 1947 affected over of England, impacting thirty counties. It was the worst UK flooding event for over 200 years.
The winter of 1946–1947 had been very severe, with mean average temperatures 4 °C (7 °F) below normal, for that time of year.
Snow had been falling continuously since 23 January, with drifts up to deep in places. As the thaw began in mid-March, the warmer weather brought heavy rains. The rain running off the frozen ground, combined with the thaw, overwhelmed multiple rivers in England and eastern Wales, which flooded. The pumping station at Chear Fen, near Stretham, ran only for a short time during the floods, when one of the boilers broke down completely and the other boiler could not raise pressure. In 1950, a new pumping station was opened.
On 21st May 1954 a Swift, a jet flying out of
RAF Waterbeach
Royal Air Force Waterbeach or more simply RAF Waterbeach is a former Royal Air Force station located in Waterbeach, Cambridgeshire which is about north of Cambridge, England. The site was transferred to the Royal Engineers, part of the British A ...
crashed onto the Chittering Farm Estate in Stretham Fen. Flying Officer Neil Hamilton Thornton, the pilot, was killed.
The skeletal remains of a 130-million-year-old
Upper Jurassic
The Late Jurassic is the third epoch of the Jurassic Period, and it spans the geologic time from 163.5 ± 1.0 to 145.0 ± 0.8 million years ago (Ma), which is preserved in Upper Jurassic strata.Owen 1987.
In European lithostratigraphy, the name ...
Pliosaur
Pliosauroidea is an extinct clade of plesiosaurs, known from the earliest Jurassic to early Late Cretaceous. They are best known for the subclade Thalassophonea, which contained crocodile-like short-necked forms with large heads and massive tooth ...
were discovered in a deep
Kimmeridge Clay
The Kimmeridge Clay is a sedimentary deposit of fossiliferous marine clay which is of Late Jurassic to lowermost Cretaceous age and occurs in southern and eastern England and in the North Sea. This rock formation is the major source rock for North ...
pit in the village in 1952 by workers of the
Great Ouse
The River Great Ouse () is a river in England, the longest of several British rivers called "Ouse". From Syresham in Northamptonshire, the Great Ouse flows through Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Norfolk to drain into the Wa ...
River Board
River boards were authorities who controlled land drainage, fisheries and river pollution and had other functions relating to rivers, streams and inland waters in England and Wales between 1950 and 1965.
Background
Prior to the 1930s, land drain ...
. These
carnivore
A carnivore , or meat-eater (Latin, ''caro'', genitive ''carnis'', meaning meat or "flesh" and ''vorare'' meaning "to devour"), is an animal or plant whose food and energy requirements derive from animal tissues (mainly muscle, fat and other sof ...
s could reach up to in length and pliosaur teeth are a common fossil; full skeletons are however rare. This particular example was named ''Stretosaurus macromerus'' in honour of the village where it was found.
Stretham Feast Sunday
A Stretham
Feast
A banquet (; ) is a formal large meal where a number of people consume food together. Banquets are traditionally held to enhance the prestige of a host, or reinforce social bonds among joint contributors. Modern examples of these purposes i ...
Sunday was celebrated in the village and continued into the second half of the 20th century. It provided an opportunity for family reunions. The event included a parade by local bands, local friendly societies,
Mother's Union
The Mothers' Union is an international Christian charity that seeks to support families worldwide. Its members are not all mothers or even all women, as there are many parents, men, widows, singles and grandparents involved in its work. Its main ai ...
,
Women's Institute
The Women's Institute (WI) is a community-based organisation for women in the United Kingdom, Canada, South Africa and New Zealand. The movement was founded in Stoney Creek, Ontario, Canada, by Erland and Janet Lee with Adelaide Hoodless being th ...
,
British Legion
The Royal British Legion (RBL), formerly the British Legion, is a British charity providing financial, social and emotional support to members and veterans of the British Armed Forces, their families and dependants, as well as all others in ne ...
and decorated lorries.
Governance
![Stretham Old Engine](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/Stretham_Old_Engine.JPG)
Stretham has a
parish council. Parish council meetings are held in the
village hall
A village hall is a public building in a village used for various things such as:
United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom, a village hall is usually a building which contains at least one large room (plus kitchen and toilets), is owned by a local ...
situated in the parish.
Parish council services include
bus shelters
A bus stop is a place where buses stop for passengers to get on and off the bus. The construction of bus stops tends to reflect the level of usage, where stops at busy locations may have shelters, seating, and possibly electronic passenger ...
,
cemeteries
A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite or graveyard is a place where the remains of dead people are buried or otherwise interred. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek , "sleeping place") implies that the land is specifically designated as a buri ...
,
shared equity Equity sharing is another name for shared ownership or '' co-ownership''. It takes one property, more than one owner, and blends them to maximize profit and tax deductions. Typically, the parties find a home and buy it together as co-owners, but so ...
housing, local planning consultation, play areas, village halls, and war memorials.
The area formed part of
Ely Rural District
Ely Rural District was a rural district in England from 1894 to 1974. It was named after Ely, but did not include the city itself, instead covering the rural area to the west and north of it. It formed part of the administrative county of the ...
from 1894 until 1974.
East Cambridgeshire District Council
East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth.
Etymology
As in other languages, the word is formed from the fac ...
(ECDC) was formed in 1974 with administration buildings in Ely. The district council collects
council tax
Council Tax is a local taxation system used in England, Scotland and Wales. It is a tax on domestic property, which was introduced in 1993 by the Local Government Finance Act 1992, replacing the short-lived Community Charge
The Community C ...
, provides services such as building regulations and local planning, leisure and tourism, handles issues strategic to the district, and many other services.
The village (as at 2022) is in the ECDC Stretham Ward.
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 ...
provides county-wide services such as major road infrastructure, libraries and heritage, and strategic planning.
[
A mobile library (as at 2022) visits 3 locations in the village every 1st Wednesday monthly.
The parish (as of 2022) is part of the South East Cambridgeshire parliamentary constituency.
]
Geography
Geology
The village is on an east–west running boulder clay
Boulder clay is an unsorted agglomeration of clastic sediment that is unstratified and structureless and contains gravel of various sizes, shapes, and compositions distributed at random in a fine-grained matrix. The fine-grained matrix consists ...
(middle-Pleistocene
The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...
till
image:Geschiebemergel.JPG, Closeup of glacial till. Note that the larger grains (pebbles and gravel) in the till are completely surrounded by the matrix of finer material (silt and sand), and this characteristic, known as ''matrix support'', is d ...
) ridge
A ridge or a mountain ridge is a geographical feature consisting of a chain of mountains or hills that form a continuous elevated crest for an extended distance. The sides of the ridge slope away from the narrow top on either side. The line ...
sitting on a belt of mainly Jurassic
The Jurassic ( ) is a Geological period, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, approximately Mya. The J ...
Kimmerigian clay
Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4).
Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay par ...
s running south-west from The Wash
The Wash is a rectangular bay and multiple estuary at the north-west corner of East Anglia on the East coast of England, where Norfolk, England, Norfolk meets Lincolnshire and both border the North Sea. One of Britain's broadest estuaries, it i ...
. To the east is a north–south running belt of geologically more recent Upper-Cretaceous
The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of th ...
Lower Greensand
The Lower Greensand Group is a geological unit present across large areas of Southern England. It was deposited during the Aptian and Albian stages of the Early Cretaceous. It predominantly consists of sandstone and unconsolidated sand that were ...
capped by Lower-Cretaceous Gault Clay
The Gault Formation is a geological formation of stiff blue clay deposited in a calm, fairly deep-water marine environment during the Lower Cretaceous Period (Upper and Middle Albian). It is well exposed in the coastal cliffs at Copt Point in ...
; the whole area is surrounded by even more recent fen
A fen is a type of peat-accumulating wetland fed by mineral-rich ground or surface water. It is one of the main types of wetlands along with marshes, swamps, and bogs. Bogs and fens, both peat-forming ecosystems, are also known as mires. T ...
deposits. A rich layer of phosphate
In chemistry, a phosphate is an anion, salt, functional group or ester derived from a phosphoric acid. It most commonly means orthophosphate, a derivative of orthophosphoric acid .
The phosphate or orthophosphate ion is derived from phospho ...
fossils, known locally as 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 is de ...
and mined for its fertiliser
A fertilizer (American English) or fertiliser (British English; see spelling differences) is any material of natural or synthetic origin that is applied to soil or to plant tissues to supply plant nutrients. Fertilizers may be distinct from ...
value, is to be found at the junction of Lower Greensand and Gault Clay. Further east is a north-east—south-west running belt of Cretaceous chalk
Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. Chalk ...
. To the west, again running north-east—south-west, is a scarp belt of middle-Jurassic sedimentary rock
Sedimentary rocks are types of rock that are formed by the accumulation or deposition of mineral or organic particles at Earth's surface, followed by cementation. Sedimentation is the collective name for processes that cause these particles ...
s including limestone
Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...
and sandstone
Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks.
Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...
.
The flat fenland countryside around the village, typical for this part of the region, lies about above sea-level. The highest point in the village is above sea-level and the highest point in the area is at Ely, three-mile () north-north-east. In contrast, the highest point in Cambridgeshire, above sea-level, is at Great Chishill
Great Chishill is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Great and Little Chishill, in the South Cambridgeshire district, in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. The village is about east of the county boundary with Hertford ...
, almost due south. Holme at nine feet () below sea-level is East Cambridgeshire's (and the United Kingdom's) lowest point, and is north-west.
Boundaries
The eastern border is formed by the River Cam. The River Great Ouse forms the south-west border then, at the Stretham Ferry Bridge, cuts through the south-eastern corner joining the River Cam at the north-east corner of the village. The A10 road crosses the River Great Ouse at close to the Stretham Ferry Bridge at the southern border of the village then, running firstly due north, cuts the village in half running north-east on towards Little Thetford then Ely. Newmarket road, in this area the west–east running A1123 from Huntingdon, joins the village coming from the west out of Wilburton through the village crossing the River Great Ouse at Gravel Farm then on towards Wicken.
Climate
The average annual rainfall of makes Cambridgeshire one of the driest counties in the British Isles
The British Isles are a group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Northern Isles, ...
. Protected from the cool onshore coastal breezes east of the region, Cambridgeshire is warm in summer and cold and frosty in winter. Regional weather forecasting
Weather forecasting is the application of science and technology forecasting, to predict the conditions of the Earth's atmosphere, atmosphere for a given location and time. People have attempted to predict the weather informally for millennia a ...
and historical summaries are available from the UK Met Office
The Meteorological Office, abbreviated as the Met Office, is the United Kingdom's national weather service. It is an executive agency and trading fund of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and is led by CEO Penelope E ...
. The nearest Met Office weather station
A weather station is a facility, either on land or sea, with instruments and equipment for measuring atmospheric conditions to provide information for weather forecasts and to study the weather and climate. The measurements taken include tempera ...
is Cambridge.
Demography
Stretham is in output area classification zones (CGM) one through five; mainly classified as type three-C, accessible countryside, though about one third of the area is classed as three-A, village life. In both these classifications, most residents work from home employed in agriculture of fishing. The areas in this classification are less densely populated than other areas of the country. The usually detached households generally have two or more cars. Varied ethnic backgrounds are less likely in such areas.
Architecture
In 1763 an agreement was reached to build a bridge across the River Great Ouse for the Ely-Cambridge turnpike at Stretham Ferry.
The original bridge was replaced in 1925, and the road was realigned in 1976 so this bridge is no longer used by traffic between Ely and Cambridge.
Notable buildings
To the east of the 12th century site of St James' Church stands an early 15th century cross "...the most perfect surviving example in the country."; it was restored in 1910. Parts of St James's Church are 14th century though it was heavily restored in the 19th century. A church clock was fitted in 1877. It chimes on two bells after the ordinary way, except when the hour is up, when it does not chime, but strikes on the large bell; the face is round, with two hands and an attractive appearance.
Monuments include a tomb lid with an inscription which refers to Nicholas de Kyngestone, rector late 13th century; a brass to Joan Swan, 1497; a black marble slab for Anne Brunsell, 1667, wife of a rector, and sister of Sir Christopher Wren
Sir Christopher Wren PRS FRS (; – ) was one of the most highly acclaimed English architects in history, as well as an anatomist, astronomer, geometer, and mathematician-physicist. He was accorded responsibility for rebuilding 52 churches ...
. The church is part of the Ely team ministry along with the nearby St George's Church, Little Thetford
St George's Church, Little Thetford, is an Anglican church in the village of Little Thetford, Cambridgeshire, England.
History
St. George's Church is a 14th-century stone building with slate roof. In 1751 it was recorded as a chapel of ease a ...
.
The Stretham Windmill (now a private home) at the top of High Street where it meets the A10 is a Grade II Listed Building (listed in 1988). It dates from 1881 and consists of four storeys of tarred brick and a metal ogee cap and fantail. The Royal Observer Corps
The Royal Observer Corps (ROC) was a civil defence organisation intended for the visual detection, identification, tracking and reporting of aircraft over Great Britain. It operated in the United Kingdom between 29 October 1925 and 31 December ...
were based adjacent to it from 1962 till 1968 and used the windmill itself as an aircraft observation post from 1936. The windmill is a notable landmark on the A10 road.
The Red Lion public house is a former coaching inn which had been operating since at least 1763.
The village store includes a post office
A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional serv ...
.
Transport
The village was once served by a railway station
Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...
on the Ely and St Ives Railway
The Ely and St Ives Railway was a railway company that opened a line between those places (in Cambridgeshire, England) in 1878. It was an extension of the privately promoted Ely, Haddenham & Sutton Railway that had opened in 1866. It was a standa ...
. The line between Ely station and Sutton
Sutton (''south settlement'' or ''south town'' in Old English) may refer to:
Places
United Kingdom
England
In alphabetical order by county:
* Sutton, Bedfordshire
* Sutton, Berkshire, a List of United Kingdom locations: Stu-Sz#Su, location
* S ...
was opened 16 April 1866 under Great Eastern Railway (GER) operation. On 10 May 1878 the line was completed when the Needingworth
Needingworth is a village in Cambridgeshire, England. Needingworth lies approximately east of Huntingdon and just west of the Prime Meridian. Needingworth is in the civil parish of Holywell-cum-Needingworth. Needingworth is situated within Hun ...
junction, on the St Ives to March
March is the third month of the year in both the Julian and Gregorian calendars. It is the second of seven months to have a length of 31 days. In the Northern Hemisphere, the meteorological beginning of spring occurs on the first day of Marc ...
line, was linked to the Ely–St Ives branch. Although passenger traffic was always poor; the line closed to passengers 22 February 1931, seasonal freight traffic of sugar-beet
A sugar beet is a plant whose root contains a high concentration of sucrose and which is grown commercially for sugar production. In plant breeding, it is known as the Altissima cultivar group of the common beet (''Beta vulgaris''). Together wit ...
and fruit kept the line going until it finally closed 5 October 1964. The new bridge for the A10 at Stretham Ferry was constructed in 1975 diverting the road over the River Great Ouse at Chear Lode.
Education
Stretham Community Primary School serves the community.
Notable people
* Hervey le Breton
Hervey le Breton (also known as Hervé le Breton; died 30 August 1131) was a Breton cleric who became Bishop of Bangor in Wales and later Bishop of Ely in England. Appointed to Bangor by King William II of England, when the Normans were advanc ...
(d. 1131), Bishop 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 nort ...
.
* Lancelot Ridley
Lancelot Ridley (died 1576), was an English clergyman, known as a theological writer, and rector of St James' Church, Stretham, St James' Church, Stretham, Cambridgeshire.
Life
He was educated at Clare Hall, Cambridge, and proceeded Bachelor of ...
(d. 1576), appointed one of the first Six Preachers
The college of Six Preachers of Canterbury Cathedral was created by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer as part of the reorganisation of the monastic Christ Church Priory into the new secular Cathedral.
First mentioned in a letter of Cranmer to Thomas Cromw ...
of Canterbury Cathedral
Canterbury Cathedral in Canterbury, Kent, is one of the oldest and most famous Christian structures in England. It forms part of a World Heritage Site. It is the cathedral of the Archbishop of Canterbury, currently Justin Welby, leader of the ...
in 1541 and a rector
Rector (Latin for the member of a vessel's crew who steers) may refer to:
Style or title
*Rector (ecclesiastical), a cleric who functions as an administrative leader in some Christian denominations
*Rector (academia), a senior official in an edu ...
of Stretham from 1560, was buried in the parish.
* John Parker (1532/3–1592), Church of England clergyman.
* Mark Ridley Mark Ridley may refer to:
* Mark Ridley (physician) (1560–1624), English physician and mathematician
* Mark Ridley (zoologist) (born 1956), English zoologist
See also
* Mark Ridley-Thomas
Mark Ridley-Thomas is an American politician. He previ ...
(1560–1624), son of Lancelot Ridley, physician who became the personal physician to the Tsar of Russia
This is a list of all reigning monarchs in the history of Russia. It includes the princes of medieval Rus′ state (both centralised, known as Kievan Rus', Kievan Rus′ and feudal, when the political center moved northeast to Grand Duke of Vl ...
, was born in Stretham. A 7,203 entry Russian–English dictionary was published by Ridley, and also books on magnetism
Magnetism is the class of physical attributes that are mediated by a magnetic field, which refers to the capacity to induce attractive and repulsive phenomena in other entities. Electric currents and the magnetic moments of elementary particles ...
; he was a friend of William Gilbert.
* Ralph Brownrigg (1592–1659), Bishop of Exeter. Vicar in Stretham and Prebendary
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 ...
of Ely in 1821.
* James Brown
James Joseph Brown (May 3, 1933 – December 25, 2006) was an American singer, dancer, musician, record producer and bandleader. The central progenitor of funk music and a major figure of 20th century music, he is often referred to by the honor ...
(1709–1784) was an English cleric and academic. He was Master of Pembroke College, Cambridge
Pembroke College (officially "The Master, Fellows and Scholars of the College or Hall of Valence-Mary") is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college is the third-oldest college of the university and has over 700 ...
from 1770 until his death. From 1771 he was vicar of Stretham. A close friend of Thomas Gray
Thomas Gray (26 December 1716 – 30 July 1771) was an English poet, letter-writer, classics, classical scholar, and professor at Pembroke College, Cambridge, Pembroke College, Cambridge. He is widely known for his ''Elegy Written in a Country ...
, he acted with William Mason William, Willie, or Willy Mason may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
*William Mason (poet) (1724–1797), English poet, editor and gardener
*William Mason (architect) (1810–1897), New Zealand architect
*William Mason (composer) (1829–1908), Ame ...
as executor of Gray's will.
* Henry Hervey Baber
Henry Hervey Baber (1775–28 March 1869) was an English philologist.
He was born in Slingsby, Yorkshire the second son of Thomas, a London Attorney of the Inner Temple, and Elizabeth (née Berriman) Baber and was educated at St Paul's School, L ...
(bap. 1775, d. 1869), philologist
Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as th ...
and Church of England clergyman, rector at St James, Stretham 1827–1869.
* Joseph Glynn (1799–1863), engineer, responsible for the Stretham steam pumping engine and others.
* Philip Freeman
Philip Freeman (1818–1875) was a Church of England cleric and Archdeacon of Exeter.
Life
Freeman, son of Edmund Freeman, of the Cedars, Combs, Suffolk, and Margaret, daughter of William Hughes of Wexford, Ireland, was born at the Cedars, Co ...
(1818–1875), Church of England clergyman and Archdeacon of Exeter. Married youngest daughter of Henry Hervey Baber (above).
* Sir George Harry Smith Willis (1823–1900),[Vetch (2004) ]ODNB
The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...
br>Sir George Harry Smith Willis
British Army general and colonel of the Middlesex Regiment (The Duke of Cambridge's Own). He inherited half of the manorial rights or lordship of Stretham in 1861 in the right of his wife (daughter of G. G. Morgan, the previous owner, who died in 1845).
* Jean Adamson
Jean Adamson, (born 29 February 1928) is a British writer and illustrator of children's books. She is best known for the ''Topsy and Tim'' books, the first of which was published in 1960 and which were relaunched in 2003.
Life and career
Ada ...
MBE Mbe may refer to:
* Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo
* Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria
* Mbe language, a language of Nigeria
* Mbe' language, language of Cameroon
* ''mbe'', ISO 639 code for the extinct Molala language
Molal ...
(1928– ), writer of Topsy and Tim
Topsy and Tim is a series of children's books written by Jean Adamson and Gareth Adamson about twins and their adventures. They were first published in 1960 and were relaunched in new editions in February 2003.
Since 1960 more than 130 ''Topsy a ...
, lives in the village
See also
* List of places in Cambridgeshire
This is a list of cities, towns and villages in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It includes places in the former county of Huntingdonshire, now a district of Cambridgeshire.
A
*Abbotsley
*Abbots Ripton
*Abington Pigotts
*Alconbury
*Alco ...
* History of Cambridgeshire
:''This article concerns the History of Cambridgeshire. For other information on the region, see Cambridgeshire''.
The English county of Cambridgeshire has a long history.
Anglo-Saxon times
The area that is now Cambridgeshire was settled at a ...
Notes
References
Bibliography
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External links
Official website
2001 Census profile, Stretham parish, East Cambridgeshire
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{{authority control
Villages in Cambridgeshire
Civil parishes in Cambridgeshire
East Cambridgeshire District