Horningsea is a small village north of

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a College town, 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. Cam ...

Cambridgeshire Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a 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 Northamptonshire to the ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. The

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one o ...

covers an area of . It lies on the east bank of the River Cam, and on the road from Cambridge to Clayhithe. The nearest

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 prep ...

Waterbeach Waterbeach is an expanding village north of Cambridge on the edge of The Fens, in the South Cambridgeshire district of Cambridgeshire, England. It was designated a "new town" in 2018. History Early periods Waterbeach is on the Car Dyke, a Ro ...

, away. Listed as ''Horningesea'' 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 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manus ...

, the village's name derives from either "Island (or dry ground in marsh) of a man called Horning" or "Island by the horn-shaped hill".

History

Central to the development of Horningsea as a settlement has been its location on the River Cam, whose use for navigation dates back to at least Roman times. Around 4000 years ago, the parish consisted of a chalk promontory between marshland and the sea, and there is evidence of

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age ( Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostl ...

habitation. Around 1000 years ago it had become a peninsula extending northwards into the undrained

fen A fen is a type of peat-accumulating wetland fed by mineral-rich Groundwater, 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 ...

s. Between the 2nd and 4th centuries Horningsea was used for pottery by the Romans and was connected with

Lincoln Lincoln most commonly refers to: * Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), the sixteenth president of the United States * Lincoln, England, cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire, England * Lincoln, Nebraska, the capital of Nebraska, U.S. * Lincol ...

Car Dyke The Car Dyke was, and to a large extent still is, an long ditch which runs along the western edge of the Fens in eastern England. It is generally accepted as being of Roman age and, for many centuries, to have been taken as marking the western ...

, a Roman canal. Drainage of the area began with

Bottisham Bottisham is a village and civil parish in the East Cambridgeshire district of Cambridgeshire, England, about east of Cambridge, halfway to Newmarket. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 1,983, including Chittering, increasin ...

Lode in early medieval times, and a bridge is mentioned in the village in the late 13th century. In 1637 the

Earl of Bedford Earl of Bedford is a title that has been created three times in the Peerage of England and is currently a subsidiary title of the Dukes of Bedford. The first creation came in 1138 in favour of Hugh de Beaumont. He appears to have been degraded fr ...

was given 400 acres in

Fen Ditton Fen Ditton is a village on the northeast edge of Cambridge in Cambridgeshire, England. The parish covers an area of . Fen Ditton lies on the east bank of the River Cam, on the road from Cambridge to Clayhithe, and close to junction 34 of the A ...

, Horningsea, and Stow cum Quy which were drained over the following 20 years. The remainder of the parish was drained in the late 18th and 19th centuries, other than the area around Snout's Corner, which is still fenland. The Saxon hamlets of Eye and Clayhithe have been part of Horningsea parish since 1279, with Clayhithe situated where the ancient peninsula reached the river. In 2006 Horningsea's conservation area was re-appraised by South Cambridgeshire District Council. The report contains much detail about the current status of the village and its buildings.

Church

The village has been home to a place of worship for well over a thousand years. The Saxons chose the site for a minster in the 9th century, though it was sacked by the invading Danes in the 870s and rebuilt soon after. Only a pair of Saxon coffin lids remain from the original church. The south arcade remains from the 11th century, the chancel from around 1220, and the building was substantially rebuilt in the 13th and 14th centuries. During this period it was granted to the Hospital of St John in Cambridge, that later became St John's College. It was extensively restored in the early 19th century.

Village life

Horningsea has two pubs (the Plough and Fleece and the Crown and Punchbowl), and the parish church of St Peter. The only retail facility inside the village is a Garden centre which also contains a cycle shop. In September, 2012 a Community Interest Company (Horningsea CIC) took over the running of the Plough and Fleece pub (at the time the only village pub). There were three public houses in 1764; The Sluice at Clayhithe which catered to the river traffic, closed in around 1830, The Chequers, which probably opened around 1800 and closed in around 1873, and The Crown and Punch Bowl inn which opened in a 17th-century building in around 1764. The Plough and Fleece, occupying a 16th-century building, opened as a pub in the 19th century. The Millennium Green contains a sculpture called Convexity created by local artist Matthew Sanderson.Sanderson Sculpture
/ref> The Millennium pavilion is also situated here. These were created as part of the Millennium celebrations at the start of 2000.

Nearby villages

* Clayhithe *

* Milton *

References

External links