Houghton, Huntingdonshire
Historical Description
Houghton, a village and a parish in Huntingdonshire. The village stands on the river Onse, 2½ miles WNW from St Ives station on the G.E.R., G.N.R., and M.R. Junction. It has a post, money order, and telegraph office under Huntingdon. The parish comprises 1549 acres; population, 417. The manor belongs to the Dnke of Manchester. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Ely; gross yearly value, £150 with residence. Patron, the Duke of Manchester. The church is a very ancient building in the Perpendicular style, consists of nave, N aisle, chancel, and S porch, with tower and spire, and contains an Early English stone seat, and an elegant piscina. There is a chapel used by the Baptists and Con-gregationalists. Houghton Hill is a county residence standing in a park of 70 acres.
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 | Houghton St. Mary | |
Hundred | Hurstingstone | |
Poor Law union | St. Ives |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Cemeteries
A cemetery of one acre was opened in 1905, at a cost of about £200.
Church Records
The register dates from the year 1633, and records a "prodigious flood" on 9 June, 1725.
Churches
Church of England
St. Mary (parish church)
The church of St. Mary, an ancient structure chiefly in the Perpendicular style, consists of chancel, nave with clerestory, north aisle, south porch and an embattled western tower with a spire and containing 5 bells, which in 1878 were taken down and rehung at a cost of £7: the chancel was restored in 1851 and again in 1870, and retains an elegant piscina and a stone seat in the Early English style; there are memorial windows to Gilbert Ansley, d. 1860. and Gilbert John Ansley. d 1875, and a brass placed in 1897 to Mary Anne, widow of Gilbert Ansley: the pulpit was made in 1893 from the wood of a tree out of Houghton Hill Park: in 1902, a new chancel screen with rood was erected: in 1870-1 the church underwent a thorough repair, at a cost of £200: there are 160 sittings.
Other
Union chapel
Here is a small Chapel, used in common by Congregationalists and Baptists, and built in 1840, at the joint expense of the late Potto Brown esq. J.P. and the late Joseph Goodman esq.
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 Houghton from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Houghton (St. Mary))
Land and Property
The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Huntindonshire is available to browse.
Maps
Online maps of Houghton 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)