- the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia
Between Anglo-Saxon times and the 19th century Cambridgeshire was divided for administrative purposes into 17 hundreds, plus the Borough of Cambridge. Each hundred had a separate council that met each month to rule on local judicial and taxation matters.
The shire-system of East Anglia was in all probability not definitively settled before the Norman Conquest, but during the Danish occupation of the 9th century the district possessed a certain military and political organization round Cambridge, its chief town, from where the constitution and demarcation of the later shire most likely originated.
At the time of the Domesday Survey in 1086 the county was divided into the hundreds as they are now, except that the Isle of Ely, which then formed two hundreds having their meeting-place at Witchford, were subsequently divided into the four hundreds of Wisbech, Ely, North Witchford and South Witchford, while Cambridge formed a hundred by itself. The Hundred of Flendish, which might be said to be the Hundred for Cambridge, was then known as "Flamingdike".
The era of the hundreds was almost finished when Cambridgeshire was separated into two separate counties in 1889: the administrative county of Cambridgeshire and the administrative county of Isle of Ely. The existence of two counties was to last until 1965 when they came back together as Cambridgeshire and Isle of Ely. Nine years later, in 1974, the area came under a new type of administration and 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 located within the Isle of Ely during its existence, even the hundreds, include "Isle of Ely" in their placenames instead of Cambridgeshire.
Ely Hundred was large and located on the eastern side of the County of Cambridgeshire.
A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Ely Hundred from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales:
- "The hundred of Ely lies around the city [of Ely]; extends eastward to Norfolk, and northward to the neighbourhood of Welney; and includes, besides the city parishes and places, the parishes of Downham and Littleport. Acres: 42,432. Population: 13,868. Houses: 2,968."
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