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Cambridgeshire

County of England

  • 11 min read
  • 12 chapters
Ely Cathedral, Cambridgeshire, England from the southeast
Verbcatcher · CC BY-SA 4.0

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The county has an area of 3,389 km2 (1,309 sq mi) and had an estimated population of 906,814 in 2022. Peterborough is in the north-west and the city of Cambridge in the south. The remainder of the county is rural, and contains the city of Ely in the east, Wisbech in the north-east, and St Neots and Huntingdon in the west. For local government purposes Cambridgeshire comprises a non-metropolitan county, with five districts, and the unitary authority area of Peterborough; their local authorities collaborate through Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority. The county did not historically include Huntingdonshire or the Soke of Peterborough, which was part of Northamptonshire.

The north and east of the county are dominated by the Fens, an extremely flat, drained marsh maintained by drainage ditches and dykes; Holme Fen is the UK's lowest physical point, at 2.75 m (9 ft) below sea level. The flatness of the landscape makes the few areas of higher ground, such as that Ely is built on, very conspicuous. The landscape in the south and west is gently undulating. Cambridgeshire's principal rivers are the Nene, which flows through the north of the county and is canalised east of Peterborough; the Great Ouse, which flows from west to east past Huntingdon and Ely; and the Cam, a tributary of the Great Ouse which flows through Cambridge.

History

Cambridgeshire is noted as the site of Flag Fen in Fengate, one of the earliest-known Neolithic permanent settlements in the United Kingdom, compared in importance to Balbridie in Aberdeen, Scotland. Must Farm quarry, at Whittlesey, has been described as "Britain's Pompeii due to its relatively good condition, including the 'best-preserved Bronze Age dwellings ever found in the UK'". A great quantity of archaeological finds from the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age were made in East Cambridgeshire. Most items were found in Isleham.

The area was settled by the Anglo-Saxons starting in the fifth century. Genetic testing on seven skeletons found in Anglo-Saxon era graves in Hinxton and Oakington found that five were either migrants or descended from migrants from the continent, one was a native Briton, and one had both continental and native ancestry, suggesting intermarriage.

Cambridgeshire was recorded in the Domesday Book as "Grantbridgeshire" (or rather Grentebriġesċīre) (related to the river Granta). Covering a large part of East Anglia, Cambridgeshire today is the result of several local government unifications. In 1888 when county councils were introduced, separate councils were set up, following the traditional division of Cambridgeshire, for

  • the area in the south around Cambridge, and
  • the liberty of the Isle of Ely.

In 1965, these two administrative counties were merged to form Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely. Under the Local Government Act 1972 this merged with the county to the west, Huntingdon and Peterborough, which had been formed in 1965, by the merger of Huntingdonshire with the Soke of Peterborough (the latter previously a part of Northamptonshire with its own county council). The resulting county was called simply Cambridgeshire.

Since 1998, the City of Peterborough has been separately administered as a unitary authority area. It is associated with Cambridgeshire for ceremonial purposes such as Lieutenancy and joint functions such as policing and the fire service.

In 2002, the conservation charity Plantlife unofficially designated Cambridgeshire's county flower as the Pasqueflower.

The Cambridgeshire Regiment (nicknamed the Fen Tigers), the county-based army unit, fought in the Boer War in South Africa, the First World War and Second World War.

Due to the county's flat terrain and proximity to the continent, during the Second World War the military built many airfields here for RAF Bomber Command, RAF Fighter Command, and the USAAF. In recognition of this collaboration, the Cambridge American Cemetery and Memorial is located in Madingley.

Most English counties have nicknames for their people, such as a "Tyke" from Yorkshire and a "Yellowbelly" from Lincolnshire. The historical nicknames for people from Cambridgeshire are "Cambridgeshire Camel" or "Cambridgeshire Crane", the latter referring to the wildfowl that were once abundant in the Fens. The term "Fen Tigers" is sometimes used to describe the people who live and work in the Fens.

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