Hemingford Grey, Huntingdonshire
Historical Description
Hemingford Grey, a village and a parish in Huntingdonshire. The village stands on the Ouse, near two lines of railway, 1½ mile WSW of St Ives, which is the nearest railway station. It has a post, money order, and telegraph office under St Ives. The parish comprises 1851 acres; population, 883. The manor was given by Hardicanute to Eamsey Abbey, and by the Conqueror to Aubrey de Vere, and passed to the Greys, the Newmans, and others.. The manor house has Norman features; was formerly large and important; and was the birthplace of the Misses Gunning, famed for their beauty, one of whom became Countess of Coventry, and another successively Duchess of Hamilton and Duchess of Argyle. A water-mill occupies the site of one erected in the time of Richard I. The St Ives workhouse is here, and has accommodation for 450 inmates. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Ely; net yearly value, £168 with residence. The church is partly Norman, partly Early English; has a tower, with the stump of a spire which was destroyed by a storm in 1741; was restored in 1859 at a cost of nearly £1200, and contains monuments of the Greenes and the Margettses, and a marble tablet to Dr James John-son. There is likewise a place of worship for dissenters called the Union chapel.
Administration
The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.
| Ancient County | Huntingdonshire | |
| Ecclesiastical parish | Grey Hemingford St. James | |
| Hundred | Toseland | |
| Poor Law union | St. Ives |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Cemeteries
A cemetery of half an acre was formed in 1893, at a cost of £300.
Church Records
The parish register of baptisms dates from the year 1673; marriages and burials, 1674.
Churches
Church of England
St. James (parish church)
The church of St. James is an ancient structure, in the Norman and Early English styles, consisting of chancel, clerestoried nave, aisles, south porch and an embattled western tower with pinnacles containing 6 bells and a clock, placed in 1884, at a cost of £100; the bells were rehung in 1883, at a cost of £42, and a chiming apparatus was put up in 1875, at a cost of £8; the tower was formerly surmounted by a spire, blown down September 8, 1741, but the base still remains: the stained east window and another on the south side of the chancel are memorials to the late John Lawrence esq. and there are others to Mrs. Geldart (in 1893) and Ernest Alfred Ebsworth esq.: on the east end wall are the Lord's Prayer and the Belief, painted in medæval characters by the late Mrs. C. F. Hayter, daughter of the late Rev. Peregrine Curtois LL.B. vicar 1849-68, who also worked and presented the altar cloth; within the rails is a tablet of white marble, with a Latin inscription, to James Johnson LL.D. Chancellor of Ely, d. Feb. 1727: there are also monuments to the Greene and Margetts families, a double piscina, in the sanctuary, of Late Norman work, an aumbry, and a single piscina in the south aisle: a new organ was provided in 1905: in 1859 the church was thoroughly restored, at a cost of nearly £1,200, when the porch and north aisle were rebuilt and a vestry erected: the font was presented by the late Mrs. Geldart: there are 350 sittings.
Congregational
Congregational chapel
There is a Congregational chapel here, built in 1846.
Civil Registration
For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Hemingford Grey from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Hemingford, Grey (St. James))
Land and Property
The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Huntindonshire is available to browse.
Maps
Online maps of Hemingford Grey are available from a number of sites:
- Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- Google Streetview.
- National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
- OpenStreetMap.
- old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
- Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)