Eynesbury is an urban area in the civil parish of St Neots, in the Huntingdonshire district of Cambridgeshire, England. It mainly consists of housing, although there is an area of light industry, and a large supermarket. In addition there is a large area of open grassland and a caravan park.
Up until the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066, Eynesbury included the area north of Hen Brook which is now St Neots. It was the fame of the relics of the Cornish monk, St Neot that caused the area near the Priory where his remains were kept, that caused that part of the town to become called St Neots.
General description Eynesbury is an area of housing, and industrial and commercial buildings, now forming part of St Neots in Cambridgeshire. It lies to the east of the River Great Ouse, to the south of Hen Brook, and to the north-west of the A428 road (St Neots by-pass). It has a range of local shops for necessities and a small number of specialist shops, as well as a large supermarket. There is a post office and two convenience stores. More general shopping opportunities have migrated to St Neots town centre, although the supermarket is used by shoppers from the whole of St Neots and surrounding rural areas. Some light and medium industry is located along Cromwell Road. Residential housing has been built in recent years particularly around the area north of the Tesco supermarket.
Agricultural land lies to the east between the railway line and the A428 by-pass, but this is likely to be dedicated to housing in the coming years. A considerable area of amenity grassland lies in the curve of the River Great Ouse, in an area known as Pocket Park.
In the 1960s Eynesbury was subject to a considerable expansion in housing, as part of the London overspill scheme. A number of infill housing construction plans have been completed more recently. By contrast the Chequers Public House is considered to be the oldest building in Eynesbury.Chequers Public House at What Pub website
Eynesbury is home to Ernulf Academy.Ernulf Academy website at
Eynesbury has a Non-League football club Eynesbury Rovers F.C., which play at Alfred Hall Memorial Ground.Eynesbury Rovers F C website at
The Coneygeare area next to the Coneygeare bridge over the River Great Ouse has a council-operated children's play area, and nearby is St Neots Camping and Caravanning Club Site.St Neots Camping and Caravanning at
Early history Stone and Bronze Age There is evidence of Bronze Age occupation just south of Montague Square, in present-day Eynesbury. Iron Age occupation has left evidence too, in the area occupied by Eynesbury School's games fields, and near Howitts Lane. They were Belgic tribesmen from the Continent who conquered this part of the country in the century or so before the Roman invasion, and brought with them improved farming techniques.C F Tebbutt, St. Neots: The History of a Huntingdonshire Town, Phillimore Publishing Co Ltd, Chichester, 1978, corrected reprint 1984, ISBN 0 85033 270 2, pages 5 to 7
Roman period A Roman road passed close to the east of present-day Eynesbury and St Neots. It connected the Roman military stations of Sandy and Godmanchester. It ran about north - south and crossed the present-day A428 road (St Neots by-pass to Cambridge main road) just east of the roundabout where the B1428 joins it at Wintringham roundabout. A small Roman outpost was located a short distance to the west of that point, and a possible trading post has been identified in Eynesbury itself. Tebbutt speculates that Eynesbury may have been a location for loading agricultural produce onto river vessels for transport to other Roman locations. The settlement probably extended along the Great Ouse from the ford (near the site of the present-day road bridge) to the Coneygeare area.G C Gorham, The History and Antiquities of Eynesbury and St Neot's in Huntingdonshire and of St. Neot's in the County of Cornwall, Harding, Mavor and Lepard, London, 1824, pages 6 to 8; [apostrophes in the town names are printed in the book.]
Anglo-Saxon A settlement existed in Eynesbury in the middle of the 8th century AD, and possibly earlier, known by some variation of its present-day name. From that time, part of the inhabitation was in what is now St Neots, but then considered part of Eynesbury. A village called Burg, or Bury, may have existed here in still earlier times. There was a ford of the River Great Ouse at that time.Gorham, pages 1 and 2
The name Eynesbury is a corruption of Ernulph's-Bury, abbreviated into Ern'sbury, or else a corruption of Ainulph's-Bury contracted into Ain’sbury: the village was therefore Ernulph's Borough, or Ainulph's Borough; however the identity of Ernulph or Ainulph is unknown. The most likely explanation is that Ernulph who lived here and died about the middle of the 8th century.Gorham, pages 16 to 19
A hermit named Neot had founded a monastery in the Cornish village now known as St Neot. He became extremely famous for his piety and wisdom, and for miraculous events associated with him. In 877 AD he died, and his remains were housed at the monastery he had founded, and the monastery and the relics became the object of pilgrimage.
About 975 AD a nobleman and landowner named Leofric (alternatively Earl Alric) and his wife Leofleda (alternatively Countess Ethelfleda) had acquired extensive lands in Eynesbury; the name still included the area north of the Hen Brook now called St Neots. They soon founded a priory in what is now St Neots, close to the River Great Ouse. A priory could be a lucrative asset if it was of high religious repute, attracting pilgrims, and their money. Leofric and Leofleda needed the relics of a notable holy person as their patron, and Neot was their choice. They arranged to abstract his remains and brought them to their priory, where they were placed in a shrine.Gorham, pages 48 to 52
Norman conquest In 1066 William the Conqueror defeated the Anglo-Saxon defenders at the Battle of Hastings, and this resulted (after a struggle) in William becoming King. In 1085 William the Conqueror ordered that a survey of building and land ownership and value should be carried out, and this resulted in what is now known as the Domesday Book.Ann Williams and G H Martin, (editors), The Domesday Book: A Complete Translation, Penguin Books, London, 1992, ISBN 0 141 00523 8, pages 551 to 561
Eynesbury was listed in the Domesday Book as being in the Toseland Hundred in Huntingdonshire; the name of the Eynesbury was written as Einuluesberiam and Einuluesberie in the Domesday Book.Williams and Martin, page 1344 In 1086 there were two manors at Eynesbury; the annual rent paid to the lords of the manors in 1066 had been £44 and the rent had increased to £47 in 1086.Anna Powell-Smith and J J N Palmer, Open Domesday website at
The Domesday Book records that there were 76 households in Eynesbury in 1086, suggesting that the population was between 266 and 380 persons.Nigel Goose and Andrew Hinde, Estimating Local Population Sizes at
The Domesday Book uses units of measure for land area such as hide and ploughland. These were terms for the area of land that a team of eight oxen could plough in a single season and are equivalent to ; this was the amount of land that was considered to be sufficient to support a single family. By 1086, the hide had become a unit of tax assessment rather than an actual land area; a hide was the amount of land that could be assessed as £1 for tax purposes. The survey records that there were 52.5 ploughlands at Eynesbury in 1086 and that there was the capacity for a further 2.5 ploughlands. In addition to the arable land, there was of meadows, of woodland, three watermills and a fishery at Eynesbury.
The tax assessment in the Domesday Book was known as geld or danegeld and was a type of land-tax based on the hide or ploughland. It was originally a way of collecting a tribute to pay off the Danes when they attacked England. Following the Norman Conquest, the geld was used to raise money for the King and to pay for continental wars; by 1130, the geld was being collected annually. Having determined the value of a manor's land and other assets, a tax in proportion to value was levied on the land holder. While this was typically two shillings in the pound the amount did vary; for example, in 1084 it was as high as six shillings in the pound. For the manors at Eynesbury the total tax assessed was 24 geld. By 1086 there was already a church and a priest at Eynesbury.
Geographical extent At the time of the Domesday Book (1086 AD) the name "Eynesbury" (or its alternative spellings) included all of present-day Eynesbury and St Neots, as well as agricultural land to the east towards Croxton and Abbotsley. As the fame of the Priory of St Neot became widespread in the twelfth century, the name St Neots took hold for the immediate area, and "In honor of the Saint the name of the place was changed to Neots-bury."Gorham, page 53 In time this became "St Neots", and the extent of Eynesbury was correspondingly reduced. After 1113 AD this was formalised, and Abbotsley too was separated off, about 1138 AD.
Development of Eynesbury The Parish Church of St Mary dates back to the 12th century and was rebuilt in 1688 and restored in 1857. It is a Grade II* listed building.
The manor of Eynesbury was held by the Ferrers and Devereux family (later Viscounts Hereford), until 1571, when it was sold to Sir James Dyer whose family sold it to Sir Sidney Montagu in 1639. His family, later Earls of Sandwich, gave their name to Montagu Street in the village.
Caldecote Manor was acquired by the Haberdashers Company in 1624.
Thomas Barton, chaplain to Prince Rupert, was rector of Eynesbury from 1629 to 1631.
The parish was enclosed by the (37 Geo. 3. c. 148 ).
William Cole, the antiquary, was rector from 1768 to 1808.
In 1876, the village of Eynesbury and part of the rural parish were included in the district controlled by the Local Board of St Neots. A further rearrangement was made in 1895, when Eynesbury was divided into two civil parishes. The urban portion of 394 acres was now called the parish of Eynesbury, and included in the St Neots Urban District; the rest, with 2,641 acres of land, formed the parish of Eynesbury Hardwick.S Inskip Ladds, Parishes: Eynesbury, in A Victoria History of the County of Huntingdon: Volume 2, edited by William Page, Granville Proby and S Inskip Ladds, London, 1932, pages 272 to 280
Modern history In the period following 1945, government attention was given to the poor condition of housing in the Greater London area, and a series of measures classified as London overspill were implemented. This resulted in Eynesbury being selected for considerable expansion of council housing. The areas around Hardwick Road, Duck Lane, Sandfields Road, Howitts Gardens and Potton Road absorbed much of the migration from London.
Following the Education Act 1944 an expansion of secondary education took place. Neither Eynesbury nor Eaton Socon had enough pupils to justify a St Neots grammar school; at the time Eaton Socon was in Bedfordshire. It was not until 1960 that a secondary school was established in St Neots. It was only with the establishment of Longsands and Ernulf comprehensive schools in 1966 and 1971 that a full secondary education provision was made in St Neots.St Neots Urban District Council, 1894 - 1974, published by the Longsands Museum, March 1974, pages 7, 8 and 30