Place:Thorney, Isle of Ely, England

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

Thorney is a village about 8 miles (13km) east of Peterborough city centre, on the A47 road in England. According to the UK census of 2011 Thorney parish has a population of 2,401.

From 1889 until 1974 this part of Cambridgeshire was considered to be in the Isle of Ely. Before and after these dates it was part of Cambridgeshire, Thorney was transferred to the short-lived county of Huntingdon and Peterborough in 1965 and became part of the Peterborough District of Cambridgeshire in 1974. Peterborough became a unitary authority area, responsible for its own local government, but geographically within Cambridge, in 1998.

History

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

Thorney began as a Saxon settlement in about 500 AD. The existence of Thorney Abbey made the settlement an important ecclesiastical centre, and until 2014 it was the most northerly point of the Anglican Diocese of Ely. In 2007 the previous Thorney Abbey church, now the Church of St Mary and St Botolph, was transferred to the Deanery and Diocese of Peterborough.

Following the Dissolution of the Monasteries (circa 1559) the estate became crown property and it was granted to John Russell, 1st Earl of Bedford in 1550. At this time only a few hundred acres of the land was cultivatable; the rest being fenland. In the 1630s Francis Russell, 4th Earl of Bedford spent a reputed £100,000 draining the fens, bringing almost all of the estate and parish of nearly 18,000 acres (7,284 hectares) into agricultural use. A community of French-speaking Belgian Protestant refugees, originally from areas of Flanders that are now northern France, was settled here in the 17th century with their own church and minister, employing the ruins of the abbey for services in their own language. The Walloons had expertise in fenland drainage. The Russell family's rents from the Thorney estate increased from £300 in 1629 to £10,000 by the early 19th century. The family, whose main seat was at Woburn Abbey in Bedfordshire, occasionally resided at the manor house in Thorney village, which was known as Abbey House. The estate was sold to the tenants in 1910.

Much of the village was built at the command of the Dukes of Bedford, who wished to have a healthy place in which their estate workers could live. In the mid-19th century many buildings were added to the designs of the architect S.S. Teulon, himself a descendant of Huguenots.

The 7th Duke of Bedford's model agricultural village included a modern water supply and sewerage scheme. The neo-Jacobean Tankyard building, now known as Bedford Hall, included a 96 ft high water tower, erected in 1855, that supplied fresh water to the village. The building now houses Thorney Heritage Museum, part of the Greater Fens Museum Partnership.

The windmill on the outskirts dates from 1787 and contains six floors; it originally had six sails.

Research Tips

• Original historical documents relating to Cambridgeshire 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 many if not all the ancient parishes of Cambridgeshire and these can be purchased from the Society as separate pdfs.
• A History of the County of Cambridge. Seven 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. From the numbering it would appear that some parts of the county are yet to be published online, but the first two volumes for any county are of little interest to the genealogist. The chapters are ordered by the divisions of the county called hundreds, but each parish is listed in the volume's content page.

• A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely: Volume 3, the City (Cambridge) and University of Cambridge (published 1959)
• A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely: Volume 4, City of Ely; North Ely and South Ely, Witchford and Wisbech Hundreds (the cathedral city and liberty of Ely and the rural areas to the west and northwest, including the port of Wisbech) (published 2002)
• A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely: Volume 5, the Hundreds of Longstowe and Wetherley, west of Cambridge (published 1973)
• A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely: Volume 6, the three Hundreds of Chilford, Radfield and Whittlesford (in the south of the county, on the border with Essex) (published 1978)
• A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely: Volume 8, Armingford and Thriplow Hundreds (south and west of Cambridge) (published 1982)
• A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely: Volume 9, Chesterton, Northstowe, and Papworth Hundreds (the suburban and rural areas to the north and northwest of Cambridge) (published 1989)
• A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely: Volume 10, Cheveley, Flendish, Staine and Staploe Hundreds (northeastern Cambridgeshire) (published 2002)

• GENUKI has a page on Cambridgeshire 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. Each parish page includes a map of the parish provided by Open Street Maps.
• 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" for each parish and borough leads to analyses of population and organization of the county from about 1800 through 1974.
• Map of Cambridgeshire divisions in 1888 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time
• Map of Cambridge divisions in 1944 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time