Place:Farcet, Huntingdonshire, England

the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia The parish of Farcet was established in 1851, having previously been part of the ancient parish of Stanground, its northern neighbour. The vicarage of Stanground included the curacy of Farcet church. Farcet is located northeast of Yaxley and adjacent to what is now the Peterborough suburb of Old Fletton. Until 1965 Farcet was located in the County of Huntingdonshire. After mergers in 1965 and 1974 the county became part of Cambridgeshire. It was part of the Norman Cross Rural District 1894-1974 and is now in the Huntingdonshire administrative district of Cambridgeshire. In 2011, the year of the latest published UK census, the parish covered an area of 4,552 acres (1,842 hectares) and had a population of 1,867. [edit] Pondersbridge Wikipedia has collected a number of quotations from various late 19th century gazetteers and provided information on Pondersbridge or Pond's Bridge, a hamlet on what was the border between Huntingdonshire and Cambridgeshire, but is now all in Cambridgeshire.

Transcribed from The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland, 1868:

"PONDERSBRIDGE, a hamlet in the parish of Stanground, hundred of Norman-Cross, county Huntingdon. This hamlet was later transferred to the parish of Farcet when it was formed in 1866."

In 1870–72, John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described Pondersbridge like this:

"PONDERS-BRIDGE, a place in Whittlesey parish, Cambridge; in the fens, near Ely and Peterborough railway, 3 miles W of Whittlesey. A small church was recently erected here by S. Staffwith, Esq."

The Comprehensive Gazetteer of England and Wales, 1894-5 described Ponds Bridge, Cambridgeshire like this:

"Ponds Bridge, an ecclesiastical parish formed in 1866 from portions of the parishes of Stanground and Ramsey in Hunts and Whittlesea in Cambridgeshire, 3 miles NW from St Mary's station on the Holme and Ramsey branch of the G.N.R., and 6 SE from Peterborough. Post town, Ramsey; money order and telegraph office, Whittlesea. Population in Hunts, 232; in Cambridge, 391. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Ely; net value, £144 with residence, in the gift of the Bishop of Ely. The church, erected in 1866, is an edifice of stone in the Decorated style, consisting of chancel, nave, S transept, and bell-turret."

Kelly's Directory of Huntingdonshire (1898) described:

"POND’S BRIDGE is an ecclesiastical parish formed September 18, 1866, from portions of the parishes of Stanground, Ramsey and Whittlesea, surrounding the border line of the counties of Cambridge and Huntingdon, 6 miles south-east from Peterborough, 3 miles north-west from St. Mary's station on the Holme and Ramsey branch of the Great Northern railway, 3 south from Whittlesea, and 6 north from Ramsey, in the Northern division of the county, Ramsey petty sessional division, rural deanery of St. Ives, archdeaconry of Huntingdon and diocese of Ely. The church of St. Thomas, erected by subscription in 1866, is a building of stone in the Decorated style, consisting of chancel, nave, south transept and a bell turret carried on a buttress at the north-west angle, and containing 1 bell: in the chancel are a piscina and sedilia and four stained windows: the font consists of an octagonal basin on four alabaster shafts, and is richly carved: there are 300 sittings. The register dates from September, 1871. Up to July 14, 1867, baptisms solemnized in the licensed school room at Pond's Bridge were entered in the register of Ramsey St. Mary's, but from July 14, 1867 (inclusive), up to Aug. 13th, 1871 (inclusive), in the register of Whittlesey St. Mary's; since 1871 such baptisms have been entered in the Pond's Bridge register. The living is a vicarage, net yearly value £124, with residence, in the gift of the Bishop of Ely, and held since 1897 by the Rev. William Henry Hampton L.Th. of Durham University. There is a church mission room, 2 ½ miles from the church, in which divine service is held and a Sunday school is carried on. The principal landowners are Lord De Ramsay, the trustees of the late J. W. Childers esq. of Cantley, Doncaster, and Lord Saye and Sele, of Broughton Castle, Banbury. The soil is black loam; subsoil, peat. The chief crops are wheat, oats and potatoes. The area is 5,500 acres; the population in 1891 was 623. Pond's Bridge parish school (mixed), built in 1872, for 100 children; average attendance, 96; in the school is a stained memorial window, formerly in the old mission room, & erected to Samuel Staffurth, of Ramsey, who built the first school in this district in 1844: he died in 1858 & the window was placed by his widow."

Kelly's Directory of Cambridgeshire (1904) described:

"POND’S BRIDGE, about 3 miles south, is an ecclesiastical parish, formed is Sept. 1866, from the parishes of St. Andrew, Whittlesey, and Bamsey and Stanground, in Hunts, but as the principal part of the parish is in Hunts; the population of the portion in Cambridgeshire in 1901 was 420."

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