Historical Timeline for St Ives

The Norris Museum: St Ives Timeline
The first evidence for people living in Huntingdonshire dates to about 500,000 years
ago...They were hunter-gatherers who moved from place to place. Populations were small
and occupation did not last. Humans abandoned Britain for warmer parts of Europe during
cold extremes when ice sheets returned. They came back as the climate got better.
The warm period, in which we still live, began about 10,000 years ago...
Around 4,000 BC farming develops in this area. There is evidence of people
living in small communities for the first time.
2,300 BC people discover how to make metal objects and the new technology
spreads.
Lynch pin from an Iron Age chariot (Norris Museum)
800 BC In the Iron Age, the area around the Ouse Valley was part of the
territory of the Catuvellauni tribe. The name means “men good in battle”.
From around 25BC to 9AD.They were led by their chieftain Tasciovanus, ‘Slayer
of badgers’. His son Cunobelinus ruled from 10AD to about 42AD.
43 AD The Romans begin to settle in Britain and stay for the next 400 years. A
town and fort are established at Godmanchester. A number of villas, Roman
farms, are built along the river, including at St Ives.
Roman statuette (Norris Museum)
400 The Anglo Saxons begin to arrive from Europe.
Europe Settlers to what we now
call St Ives build a church by the river and a village round it that has the name
‘Slepe’,, possibly meaning ‘slippery place’ or ‘crossing place’.
860 Vikings arrive from Scandinavia.
Scandinavia They kill the East Anglian King
King, Edmund.
Eventually, under Athelstan, the first king of all England, the country is united
in 927.
Anglo Saxon pot (Norris Museum)
986 A local landowner, Aethelstan Manessone,
Manessone dies and
d leaves the village of
Slepe to Ramsey Abbey.
1001 The supposed bones of St Ivo, a Persian Bishop, are found near the village
of Slepe and taken to Ramsey Abbey. A Priory is built at the find spot
spot, where a
miraculous spring is located. Pilgrims start to visit.
v
The area between the
original village of Slepe and the new Priory starts to develop into the town of
St Ives. (An
An archaeological dig much later in 1981, confirms the presence of a
Roman Villa near the site).
1066 The Normans invade and take over the country after victory at the battle
of Hastings.
King Harold is killed at The Battle of Hastings
1086 Slepe iss recorded in the Domesday
Domesday Book. 52 men are recorded living
there. No one bothers to count the women and children! The village is valued at
£16.
1090 A monk called Goscelin
elin writes a book called “The
“
Life and Miracles of St
Ivo”.
”. This is the first evidence Ramsey Abbey is promoting the cult of St Ivo.
As a result St Ives gets more visitors, pilgrims who visit holy shrines.
Image of St Ivo
1107 A Ramsey Abbey charter mentions a bridge at St Ives. This is the
earliest evidence we have of a brid
bridge
ge crossing the Great Ouse here,
here made from
wood.
1110 King Henry I grants the right to hold a fair at St Ives, starting on the
Wednesday after Easter and lasting a week.
week Itt becomes one of the m
most
important fairs in the land, known for its woollen cloth, with traders and
visitors from far and wide.
St Ives Fair charter
1200 King John grants the right to hold a weekly market at St Ives. Weekly
markets are still held in St Ives to this day.
1355 St Ives Bridge is repaired using ash trees from Houghton and timber
from Warboys, showing the bridge was still built from wood at this point.
1426 The altarr in the bridge chapel is consecrated, probably marking the
completion of the new stone bridge.
bridge
Bridge chapel, St Ives
1449 Local people attack St Ives Priory. They take fish from the fish ponds,
hurl timber and lead from the roof into the river and fill the fountain with mud
and rubbish. They were probably upset with Ramsey Abbey who owned and ran
the town.
Crest of Ramsey Abbey with three rams’ heads.
1518 The Bishop of Lincoln inspects St Ives Priory. He finds the buildings in a
poor state of repair and the behaviour and conversation of some of the monks
unacceptable. They were more interested in rearing animals than attending to
their holy duties.
1539 With the dissolution of the monasteries, St Ives Priory is closed down.
The Prior was given a £12 a year pension and allowed to live in the bridge
chapel.
1544 Henry VIII gives the priory to one of his courtiers, Thomas Audley. It
was probably pulled down soon afterwards and the stone and wood sold for use
in other buildings.
King Henry VIII
1570 Elizabeth I gives the bridge chapel to one of her courtiers. The chapel is
used as private house (also at one time a pub and a doctor’s surgery) until the
1920s.
1631 Oliver Cromwell, future military and political leader of the English Civil
War and Lord Protector of the Commonwealth (1653-58), moves to St Ives and
farms here as a tenant farmer for 5 years. In 1636 he inherits his uncle’s
estate at Ely and moves there.
Oliver Cromwell
1645 During the Civil War, Parliament orders the breaking of the bridges
across the Great Ouse, including at St Ives. A drawbridge is installed to cover
the gap. New stone arches are eventually built in 1716.
1679 Puritan clergyman Dr Robert Wilde dies. His will establishes an annual
Bible Dicing ceremony at St Ives All Saints Parish Church, its aim to show that
the Word is in the Bible and not over-elaborate ceremony. Children compete to
win a bible by dicing for it on the Communion table. The event still takes place.
1689 During The Great Fire of St Ives, 122 houses, a third of the town, are
destroyed. Damage is put at some £13,000.
1719 The St Ives Mercury is founded, one of the earliest newspapers in the
country. In 1722 it is forced to close after printing something that offends Sir
Edward Lawrence the town’s biggest landowner.
1728 Edmund Pettis, a St Ives shopkeeper, produces several maps of the town
and a detailed description.
Pettis Map (Norris Museum)
1741 The spire of All Saints is blown down in a storm. It is rebuilt in 1748.
1774 Methodist preacher John Wesley visits St Ives and writes that he
preached to “a very well dressed and yet well behaved congregation.”
John Wesley
1801 The first census reveals that St Ives has a population of 2,099, living in
478 houses. That does not sound like a lot, but St Ives was cramped and
overcrowded, as it did not extend much beyond East Street and West Street
at this time.
1808 The open fields around St Ives are enclosed. The strips of land dating
back to Anglo Saxon times are consolidated into more compact units and hedged
or fenced in.
1822 The New Bridges are built across the flood plain to the south of the
town. The following year sees the highest floods of the 19th century. The 1.2
million bricks for the bridge are made locally.
New Bridges, St Ives
1847 St Ives railway station is built and the lines to Cambridge and Huntingdon
open. The line to Wisbech is opened the following year. A line to Ely is built in
1878, but closes in 1931.
1851 The census gives the population of St Ives as 3,522, an increase of 1500
in the last 50 years.
1874 St Ives receives a royal charter to elect its own mayor and corporation
or governing body.
Logo of today’s St Ives Town Council
1886 A new cattle market is opened in an effort to improve flagging trade.
Today it is a car park and bus station.
1901 The statue of Oliver Cromwell is unveiled on the Market Hill. It was paid
for by public subscription.
Cromwell Statue, St Ives
1902 The Roman Catholic Church at Cambridge, designed by Pugin, is dismantled
and re-erected in Needingworth Road, St Ives. The Victoria memorial is
unveiled on the Broadway.
1918 The spire of All Saints parish church is knocked down by an aircraft from
the Royal Flying Corps station at Wyton. It is rebuilt in 1924.
1930 The bridge chapel is restored.
restored Two stories added in the 1740s are
removed to help relieve pressure on the foundations.
1931 Herbert Norris bequeaths his antiquarian collections to St Ives together
with money to build the Norris Museum. It opens to in 1933.
Herbert Norris
1934 Mr George Wright Ingle gives the Holt Island, just across from the
museum, to St Ives. It is now a nature reserve.
1947 March brings the highest floods of the 20th century. St Ives and much of
the surrounding farmland is under water.
1951 The census gives the population of St Ives as 3,078,
3 078, hardly altered since
1881.
1959 The railway line to Huntingdon is closed, followed by the lines to Wisbech
in 1967 and Cambridge in 1970. The station is demolished in 1977. Eventually
the old railway line will become part of the guided bus way to Cambridge.
1971 Following the building of new housing estates, the
the census shows the town
has grown to a population of 7,148.
7
1972 The world’s first pocket calculator is designed and made
made in St Ives by
inventor Clive Sinclair in his works at the old steam mill near the bridge.
Sinclair
ir Executive calculator
1974 Local government reorganis
eorganisation
ation sees St Ives Borough Council become a
town council, while Huntingdonshire becomes a district within an expanded
Cambridgeshire.
The arms of Huntingdonshire County Council
1980 St Ives bypass opened, relieving pressure on the old bridge.
1981 Town population now 12,331.
1988 St Ives twinned with Stadtallendorf in Germany.
The arms of Stadtallendorf
1991 15,314 people now live in St Ives
1998 Easter brings the highest floods for 50 years and again in 2003.
2001 16,001 people now live in St Ives.
2006 The Environment Agency spends £8 million building flood defences to
protect local homes.
2010 More than £100 million is spent on the world’s longest guided bus way
between St Ives and Cambridge. St Ives also celebrates the 900th anniversary
of the granting of a Royal Charter by Henry I to hold the annual fair in the
town.
Cambridge guided busway
2012 St Ives celebrates the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the Olympic Flame
passes through the town.
2013 The Norris Museum celebrates its 80th birthday with a special exhibition
called “Herbert’s Huntingdonshire.”
The Norris Museum

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