Place:Kirtling, Cambridgeshire, England

Watchers
NameKirtling
Alt namesKirtling Greensource: settlement in parish
Kirtling Towerssource: settlement in parish
Upendsource: settlement in parish
Uphemesource: original name for above
TypeAncient parish, Civil parish
Coordinates52.186°N 0.471°E
Located inCambridgeshire, England
See alsoCheveley Hundred, Cambridgeshire, Englandhundred in which it was located
East Cambridgeshire District, Cambridgeshire, Englanddistrict municipality covering the area since 1974
the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Kirtling together with Kirtling Green and Kirtling Towers is a scattered settlement in the East Cambridgeshire District of the English county of Cambridgeshire. It forms a civil parish with the nearby village of Upend to its north.

History

From the 16th to the 19th centuries, Kirtling was known as Catlidge. Upend was originally called Upheme – old English for "the up-dwelling". Upend may once have been a separate village, but it had been absorbed into Kirtling before 1066. By 1086, Kirtling had become the most heavily populated parish in the neighbourhood.

All Saints Parish Church is a Grade I listed building, dating back to the 13th century. Kirtling Tower is also a Grade I listed building; its gatehouse was built about 1530 by Edward North, 1st Baron North (1504-1564). Dudley North, 4th Baron North (1602-1677), politician and polymath, was buried at Kirtling on 27 June 1677. His granddaughter Dudleya North (1675-1712), an orientalist and linguist, was buried here in 1712.

John Crichton-Stuart, 2nd Marquess of Bute (1793-1848) built almshouses in Kirtling in 1842 in memory of his late wife Lady Maria (died 1841).

Population

The population of the parish peaked at 909 in 1851, then fell below 800 in 1880, 600 in 1910, 500 in 1930 and to 300 in 1971. The population (including Upend) at the 2011 UK census was 327.

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  • Original historical documents relating to Cambridgeshire are now held by Cambridgeshire Archives and Local Studies at Shire Hall, Ely, Cambridgeshire, CB7 4GS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.
  • 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
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Kirtling. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with WeRelate, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.