Place:Witcham, Isle of Ely, England

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NameWitcham
Alt namesWitchamsource: from redirect
Witcham Gravelsource: detached parish absorbed in 1933
TypeAncient parish, Civil parish
Coordinates52.399°N 0.15°E
Located inIsle of Ely, England     (1889 - 1965)
Also located inCambridgeshire, England     ( - 1889)
Cambridgeshire and Isle of Ely, England     (1965 - 1974)
Cambridgeshire, England     (1974 - )
See alsoSouth Witchford Hundred, Isle of Ely, Englandhundred in which it was located
Ely Rural, Isle of Ely, Englandrural district 1894-1974
East Cambridgeshire District, Cambridgeshire, Englanddistrict municipality covering the area since 1974

NOTE: In 1889 Cambridgeshire was separated into two sections:

The existence of two counties was to last until 1965 when they came back together as Cambridgeshire and Isle of Ely. But in 1974 the area, under a new type of administration, reverted to the name Cambridgeshire. For more discussion of this situation, see Isle of Ely, England. In keeping with the policies of WeRelate, all the places within the Isle of Ely during its existence include "Isle of Ely" in their placenames instead of "Cambridgeshire".

A process is built in so that the places can be redirected to the Isle of Ely if they are originally referred to as Cambridgeshire.


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

Witcham is a small village near Ely now in Cambridgeshire, England, but between 1889 and 1965 in the county of Isle of Ely.

The village is surrounded by fenland farms and has a 13th-century church dedicated to St Martin. Witcham is built around a cross-roads in the centre of the village with each of the four roads having housing on each side for 50-200m. The population of the parish at the 2011 UK census was 429.

Historically, Witcham Parish had several detached portions in the outlying Fens. By 1896, boundary changes had reduced these detached portions to one, separated from the main by a small parish called Witcham Gravel. Witcham Gravel was placed in Ely Urban District, whereas the two parts of Witcham proper were included in Ely Rural District. This situation persisted until 1933, when Witcham Gravel parish was merged into Witcham.

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  • Original historical documents relating to Cambridgeshire are now held by Cambridgeshire Archives and Local Studies at Shire Hall, Ely, Cambridgeshire, CB7 4GS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 Witcham. 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.