Place:Bury, Huntingdonshire, England

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Bury is located near Ramsey north from Huntingdon and St. Ives in the former county of Huntingdonshire.

Bury and Hepmangrove, under the name of Bury cum Hepmangrove, appear to have originally been separate manors but were united for certain purposes before the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1538.

The parish lies to the south of Ramsey and is of a very irregular shape, projecting a considerable distance into the fen on the east side of the road from Ramsey to St Ives. The land rises on both sides of the brook which runs through the parish from northeast to southwest from 16 feet above ordnance datum at the brook to 66 feet on the northeast side, and 50 feet on the southwest. All of the fenland and much of the highland is ploughed. The soil is a strong black loam and the sub-soil is clay. The main crops are wheat, oats, beans and peas on the highland, and potatoes, celery, sugar-beet and ordinary cereals on the fenland. The population of the parish at the UK census of 2011 was 1,838.

Originally, Bury was a chapelry of Wistow but by 1178 it became the parish with the village of "Wistow" as its chapelry. (Wistow regained its separate identity as a parish by 1351). Bury also gained Upwood and Little Raveley until a separate ecclesiastical parish was formed in 1746. Bury also gained part of Ramsey parish in the 16th century at the Dissolution.

Bury and Hepmangrove now form one village. They still retain several 17th-century half-timbered thatched or tiled cottages, some of which have been re-faced with brick, but most of the houses are of brick with slate or tile roofs. The former ancient stone bridge of one arch which crossed the brook was replaced in 1925 by a wider bridge. The northwest side of the bridge is in Hepmangrove, in which the greater part of the village lies.

Until 1965 Bury was located in the County of Huntingdonshire. After mergers in 1965 and 1974 the county became part of Cambridgeshire. It was part of the St Ives Rural District until 1974 and is now in the Huntingdonshire administrative district of Cambridgeshire.

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Bury, Cambridgeshire.

Research Tips

• Original historical documents relating to Huntingdonshire are now held by Cambridgeshire Archives and Local Studies at Shire Hall, Ely, Cambridgeshire, CB7 4GS
• The Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire Family History Society has transcribed the parish registers for all the ancient parishes of Huntingdonshire and these can be purchased from the Society as pdfs.
• A History of the County of Huntingdon in 3 volumes from British History Online (Victoria County Histories). This is by far the most complete history of the parishes of the county to be found online. The chapters are ordered by the divisions of the county called hundreds, but each chapter is linked to the volume's content page. Volume 2 (published 1932) covers Hurstingstone and Toseland hundreds (index of parishes); Leightonstone and Norman Cross Hundreds (index of parishes) are found in Volume 3 (published 1936). Volume 1 is a part-volume describing the religious houses of the county.
• GENUKI has a page on Huntingdonshire and pages for each of the ecclesiastical or ancient parishes in the county. These give references to other organizations who hold genealogical information for the local area.
• The FamilyTree Wiki has a series of pages similar to those provided by GENUKI which may have been prepared at a later date.
• A Vision of Britain through Time, section "Units and Statistics" leads to analyses of population and organization of the county from about 1800 through 1974. There are pages available for all civil parishes, municipal boroughs and other administrative divisions.
• Map of Huntingdonshire divisions in 1888 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time
• Map of Huntingdonshire divisions in 1944 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time