Place:St Neots, Cambridgeshire, England

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St Neots is a town and civil parish in the county of Cambridgeshire, England, next to the Bedfordshire county border. Until 1974 it was part of Huntingdonshire. It lies on the River Great Ouse in Huntingdonshire District, west of Cambridge and north of central London. St Neots is the largest town in Cambridgeshire (Cambridge and Peterborough are both cities) with a population of 26,356 in the 2001 census, although this has grown considerably since then with an estimated population of 29,450 in 2011. The town is named after the Cornish monk Saint Neot whose bones were stolen from the village of St Neot on Bodmin Moor and concealed in the nearby priory of the same name.

Pilgrimage to St Neots brought prosperity for the town, and it was granted a market charter in 1130. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the town enjoyed further prosperity through corn milling, brewing, stagecoach traffic and railways. After the Second World War, the town and its industry grew rapidly as London councils paid for new housing to be built in the town to rehouse families from London. The first London overspill housing was completed in the early 1960s. Today, St Neots is a thriving commuter town.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Although Roman and even pre-Roman finds have been made in and around St Neots, there was no significant settlement until Saxon times. Early developments were in Eynesbury, Eaton Socon and Eaton Ford, which still exist as part of the town today; and Maltman's Green and Crosshall Ford which are no longer recognised.

The Normans rebuilt the Priory near the river and the town of St Neots grew up against its southern wall.

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