Eltisley (St. Pandiania & St. John the Baptist)
ELTISLEY (St. Pandiania & St. John the Baptist), a parish, in the union of Caxton and Arrington, hundred of Longstow, county of Cambridge, 2½ miles (N. W. by W.) from Caxton, and on the road between Oxford and Cambridge; containing 372 inhabitants. This place appears to have been yielded up to General Desbrowe, who married a sister of Oliver Cromwell, and whose family resided here above 100 years. The parish comprises about 1938 acres, chiefly arable; 113 acres are common or waste: the surface is level, and the soil heavy. A nunnery, in which St. Pandiania, the daughter of a king of Scotland, is said to have been buried, stood near the vicarage-house, but was destroyed about the time of the Conquest. The living is a discharged vicarage, valued in the king's books at £7. 16. 8.; net income, £51; patron and impropriator, Samuel Newton, Esq., whose tithes have been commuted for £216. 9. The church, which is very ancient, is in the early English style, with later insertions; the whole was repaired in 1841. There is a place of worship for Wesleyans. Near the church, on the south side, was a famous well, still called "St. Pandiania's," which has been filled up by rubbish of many years' accumulation.
Transcribed from A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858.