Huntingdonshire District Council 2006 ©
Electronic Tourist Information Kiosk
St Benedict’s Court, Huntingdon
RAMSEY
ST IVES
Electronic Tourist Information Kiosk
Great Whyte, Ramsey
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Drift Through Time ...
HISTORIC TOWN WALK
St Ives
Notes on the Walk
1 hour approx
HUNTINGDON
The Old Court, 8 New Street
St Neots PE19 1AE
Tel: 01480 388788
Fax: 01480 388791
Email: StNeots.TIC@huntsdc.gov.uk
THE BRIDGE AND CHAPEL (13) is the town’s most unusual
building. It was built in the 1420s, replacing the wooden bridge
of 300 years earlier, and is one of only a handful of surviving
chapel bridges in the whole country. Notice that the four
northern arches have pointed tops – this is how the whole
bridge looked originally – but the two southern arches are
round-topped. This is because they are later replacements: in
1645, during the Civil War, the Roundhead army pulled down
the original arches and put a drawbridge there instead. A
notice on the door of the chapel gives details of where you can
borrow the key if you’d like to look inside.
Start at the CAR PARK AND BUS STATION (1). This area used to
be the Cattle Market, built in 1886 and used until the 1970s.
Many of the cast iron railings from the cattle pens are still
standing, some of them decorated with the town’s crest of four
bulls’ heads. At one end of the bus station you can see the
eight-sided wooden building that housed the auction ring, and
at the other end are the two lodges which formed the
entrance to the market, also with the town crest carved on the
front. The motto below the crest, “Sudore non Sopore”, means
“By work, not by sleep” – a pun on “Slepe”, the original name
for St Ives.
Leave the bus station and go to Priory Road, where there is an
attractive group of Victorian buildings. On the west side is the
HURDLE HOUSE (2), now a bookmakers. The markets used to
be run from this building – the “hurdles” were used to make
pens for the animals before the metal pens were erected.
Time to complete
ST NEOTS
Tel: 01480 388588
Fax: 01480 388591
Email: Hunts.TIC@huntsdc.gov.uk
THE OLD MILL
somewhere nearby, but despite several archaeological digs in
the vicinity they have never been found.
Walk back and turn left along Wellington Lane and Wellington
Street. These pretty riverside houses were once the homes of
bargees and watermen. No. 22 Wellington Lane was the “Jolly
Waterman” pub and No. 14 was the “Hole in the Wall” – there
is still a hole in the wall now, giving you a glimpse of the
garden. In Wellington Street THE OLIVER CROMWELL (9), with its
elaborate wrought-iron signboard bracket, has been a pub since
the 1840s.
Continue down Priory Road. Next door to the School is the
OLD POLICE STATION (4), built in 1845 and now used as offices.
On one of the gables is the crest of the former County of
Huntingdon, with its green-garbed hunter. The Police Station
continued in use until 1973, when St Ives became the butt of
nationwide amusement after a new police station was built in
Pig Lane – the road was renamed Broad Leas.
At the end of Priory Road is the bridge over the OLD RIVER (8),
where you can look out over St Ives Meadow, or upstream to
the Old Bridge. The Old River was probably dug in the Middle
Ages to power the Priory's water mill.
On the other side of Priory Road is the NATIONAL SCHOOL (3),
now a café and pet shop, with its elaborate gables facing
Station Road. It was built in 1844 by the Church of England, in
reply to the Nonconformist “British School” built elsewhere in
the town five years earlier.
Turn left along New Road to see the old FOWELL’S WORKS (5),
the tall brick building on the right, now a tyre depot. Fowell
and Co. built traction engines here from 1877 until 1923. The
entrance archway is high enough for the engines to drive out
through it.
1 mile approx
Produced and published by Huntingdonshire District Council in 2006. Every
effort has been made to ensure accuracy in this publication, but no liability
can be accepted by the District Council for any omissions or inaccuracies.
As changes can occur after publication date, it is advisable to check the
information with the establishments concerned.
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A large print version is available.
Please call the Tourist Information
Centre for details.
Traveline (bus/coach/rail enquiries) Tel: 0870 6082608
Multimap (maps/driving directions) www.multimap.com
The closest rail link is at Huntingdon (6 miles away), which is on
the main rail route from London to Edinburgh. First Capital Connect
links Huntingdon with Kings Cross by a frequent 50 minute service.
Huntingdon is well connected to Peterborough by First Capital
Connect and on to the North and Scotland by the Great North
Eastern Railway (GNER).
There are regular bus services from Huntingdon, Cambridge,
and Ely.
Located 60 miles north of London, 15 miles north-west of
Cambridge and 25 miles south of Peterborough, St Ives can be
reached by road on the A1096 linked to the A14.
Getting Here…
For details of accommodation vacancies, contact either Huntingdon
or St Neots Tourist Information, or call the Huntingdonshire
Association for Tourism’s Vacancy Line on Tel: 0870 2254858
(national rate call).
Electronic Tourist Information Kiosk
Sheep Market, St Ives
HUNTINGDON
Tourist Information
Retrace your steps to Priory Road. Facing you is the grand
Victorian house called THE PRIORY (6), built in 1870 and now
used as offices. To one side of the Priory is a wall which was
part of the oldest building in St Ives. This is the 14th century
PRIORY BARN (7), the only remaining part of St Ives Priory,
founded on the spot where St Ivo's bones were discovered in
1001. The Priory church and cloister must have been
Distance
WALK FACTS
The fairs, the markets and the river have moulded St Ives. A
major expansion of the town took place between 1950 and
1990, but the historic centre is still recognisably the market
town and river port that the Ramsey monks created 900
years ago.
In the 12th century St Ives fair was one of the biggest in
England, with merchants coming here from many parts of
Europe to buy the local woollen cloth. In the 13th century
the Black Death and the Hundred Years War destroyed that
trade, but the annual fair was then replaced by the weekly
market, held every Monday with very few breaks since the
year 1200.
The Ramsey monks built a small monastery, St Ivo’s Priory, on
the spot where the bones were found. Then they began to
develop the area. They built a bridge across the river, to
replace the earlier ford, and in 1110 they obtained a royal
charter to hold a fair between Slepe village and the Priory.
The town of St Ives began to grow up around the fairground.
In about AD 980 the village was bequeathed to nearby
Ramsey Abbey, and soon afterwards came the event that
was to transform its existence. On 24th April 1001 a
ploughman dug up a stone coffin in the fields east of Slepe.
The monks of Ramsey Abbey identified the bones inside as
those of St Ivo, who they said was a Persian bishop. (We
now know that the discovery was near the site of a Roman
villa – and the Romans often buried their dead in stone
coffins!)
A brief history of St Ives
People have lived in the place we now call St Ives for
thousands of years, but the history of the present-day town
begins with the Saxons, who built a small village beside the
Great Ouse in about AD 500. “Slepe”, as it was called, lay
near the present-day parish church.
Welcome to St Ives
Beside the end of the bridge THE MANOR HOUSE (14) is the
oldest house in St Ives, dating from about 1600 but much
altered. Go back onto the Quay and turn left up Free Church
Passage. On the left, after you’ve crossed Bull Lane, is the old
INDEPENDENT MEETING HOUSE (15), now a bed shop. It was
built as a chapel in 1811 and converted into a Sunday School
when it was replaced by the Free Church in 1864. Look closely
at the brickwork! Carved into some of the bricks are the initials
of the church elders who gave money towards the school
conversion.
Dominating the end of the passage is THE FREE CHURCH (16).
It was built in 1863-64 in an elaborate Gothic style – but notice
that most of it was built in brick. The carved stonework is
confined to the front of the church and the steeple. In 1979-80
the church was imaginatively converted, when a new ground
floor was inserted, with meeting rooms, a shop and a café. It is
now put to a variety of community uses, so you may find it
open and be able to go in and see the magnificent upstairs
area, still used for church services and still with its elaborate
Victorian ornamentation.
At the end of Wellington Street is the Quay, a vital part ofSt Ives
since the Middle Ages, when merchant ships moored here to
unload their cargoes for the fairs and markets. On your left is
THE MASONIC LODGE (10), built in the 17th century as a
granary and then used as a Baptist chapel. In front of you on
the other side of the river you can see the seven-storey OLD
MILL (11), built in 1854 as a steam-powered corn mill, later a
factory and now converted into flats. It was here in 1972 that
Clive Sinclair invented the world’s first pocket calculator. Next to
the bridge on the far bank is the red-brick former WHITE HORSE
INN (12), built in the 18th century.
ST IVES BRIDGE AND CHAPEL
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Notes continued…
In front of the Free Church is THE OLIVER CROMWELL
STATUE (17). The statue was originally intended for Cromwell’s
native town of Huntingdon, to mark his 300th birthday in 1899.
But attempts to raise funds there failed and the idea was taken
up by St Ives, which had a strong Nonconformist tradition
dating back to when Cromwell lived here in the 1630s, before
he became famous. The statue, by Frederick Pomeroy, was
unveiled in October 1901.
The Market Hill has many other notable buildings. THE
GOLDEN LION (18) is an early 19th century coaching inn,
still with some original features. THE TOWN HALL (19) was
built as a private house in 1850 in a grand Italianate style.
THE RED HOUSE (20), now offices, is a fine 18th-century
house. A plaque on the building recalls that it was the
home of Theodore Watts Dunton (1832-1914), a writer
remembered nowadays for his friendship with the
poet Algernon Swinburne.
On the other side of the Market Hill, the early 18th century
WHITE HART (21) is still in business, while the former
BELL (22) is now a clothes shop. It was built in 1719 and
you can still see a bell carved in the brickwork on the top
storey. Its ground floor shop front is modern but above the
door is a 16th-century oak beam carved with the arms of
Ramsey Abbey.
Leave the Market Hill and go into Crown Street. Woolworth’s, on
the right, was built on the site of the 18th-century Crown Inn,
demolished in 1975. The Crown had a black-painted cross on
the front – no-one knows why, or how old it was – and this
feature was copied on the new building. Turn left down Bridge
Street to see THE OLD CHEMIST’S SHOP (23), now used by
Oxfam. It was built in 1728 and still has its Victorian shop front.
Eaden Lilley next door is equally old, in a range of early 18thcentury buildings of mellow red brick.
Go through Merryland into the Broadway. Together with the
Market Hill, this wide street was also part of the fairground and
market of the Middle Ages. THE VICTORIA MEMORIAL (24)
marked the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897, but it wasn’t
actually put up until 1902. The inscription on the
side says it was unveiled on 26th June that year, Edward VII’s
coronation day – but it wasn’t! The coronation was postponed
because the King was ill, and the Memorial was unveiled a few
days later, but no-one got round to changing the inscription.
The Broadway is lined with grand houses and what were once
large inns. THE BROADWAY DENTAL SURGERY (25) was built in
the early 19th century for the Osborns, a rich brewing family. A
few doors along is WITTON HOUSE (26), now a nightclub but
once the home of the Goodmans, prosperous millers. Behind its
19th-century façade, most of the house dates from about 1700.
It was also the childhood home of Mavis Wright (1908-70), a
famous beauty who became the mistress of the artist
Augustus John.
built in the 18th century and used as a boys’ school from 1856
until 1939. It is now offices and dental surgeries.
Beyond it is the PARISH CHURCH OF ALL SAINTS (32).
There has probably been a church on this site since the Saxon
inhabitants of Slepe first embraced Christianity. Most of the
present building dates from the late 1400s, but the east
window of the south aisle is early 14th century – its carved
stone tracery is a different design from all the other windows.
Notice that the 15th century builders went to some trouble to
keep this old window in their new church, as they had to put
a kink in the parapet above it in order to fit it in.
Take a close look at the west doors at the base of the tower.
Its carved woodwork matches the 15th century tracery of the
windows, but can you spot the rabbits? At the top of the door
panels, a rabbit’s head can be seen on the left door emerging
from its hole, while on the right door its cotton-tailed rump
disappears down the hole again. No-one knows why they
are there.
The spire was blown down in a violent storm in 1741 and
had to be rebuilt and strengthened several times between then
and the early 20th century. Then in 1918 an aircraft crashed
into it, killing the pilot and destroying the spire again –
restoration wasn’t completed until 1930. If you’re able to go
inside the church, its interior is well worth seeing, with an
organ, statues and a stained glass window by the famous
restorer Sir Ninian Comper.
Where the Broadway meets the Waits is THE NORRIS
MUSEUM (27) in its picturesque riverside garden. The Museum’s
contents were collected by Herbert Norris (1859-1931) who left
them to the town when he died, with the money to buy the
site and build the Museum. The displays include material from
all over Huntingdonshire, with archaeology and history, fossils
from the dinosaur period and an art gallery.
OLIVER CROMWELL STATUE
Opposite is BURLEIGH HOUSE (28), a fine 18th-century building
with a pretty garden, and THE METHODIST CHURCH (29), built
in 1904-5. The decorated tiles fronting THE OLD BUTCHER’S
SHOP (30) date from the early 20th century. On the corner of
the Waits and Ramsey Road stands MANCHESTER HOUSE (31),
THE NORRIS MUSEUM