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The Jewel of the Ouse Valley
St Neots is a wonderful place to find out how hard our ancestors
worked to provide physical and spiritual comfort for themselves
and their families. It is also a place to enjoy healthy activity
and to contribute to developing St Neots for future generations.
Whilst the road and rail links are of major importance and travellers
often break their journeys in the town, it is undoubtedly the River
Great Ouse which draws the majority of visitors to St Neots. Boating,
fishing and picnicking in the Riverside Park with its free parking
are equally popular.
The riverside and its nearby Market Square, linked by the town bridge,
is the hub of St Neots and its history. The first town bridge, consisting
of 73 timber arches, was built in 1180. This was replaced by a stone
built bridge in the early part of the 17th century which was the
site of a fight between the Royalists and the Roundheads in 1648.
The modern river bridge leads into the large Market Square which
dates from the 12th century and is still the site of a Thursday
Charter Market. Old coaching inns add interest to the shopping centre
of St Neots, and to the Old Great North Road in Eaton Socon.
The Town’s Growth
The present town consists, not only of St Neots itself, but also
includes Eaton Ford, Eaton Socon and Eynesbury. Until the year 1113,
however, the St Neots area was part of the parish of Eynesbury and,
prior to the Norman Conquest, the main settlement was there on a
site once occupied by the Saxon Ernulf, who had taken over a disused
Roman camp. There were also Saxon groups in the Eaton Ford and Eaton
Socon areas.
At Eynesbury, during the 10th century, Earl Alric (or Leofric) and
his wife established a monastery which they dedicated to St Neot
who was the Saint most venerated by King Alfred. The Saint, (who
also gave his name to St Neot in Cornwall), is shown on the town
badge, in the form of a miniature on a replica of an Anglo-Saxon
Jewel now in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. Around the figure are
Anglo-Saxon words which, translated, read ‘Alfred me ordered
to be wrought’. A mosaic replica of this Jewel can be found
on the bridge side of the Market Square.
Although not much is known of the monastery it was built on a flood-free
piece of ground close to the confluence of the Hen Brook with the
Great Ouse, a site known as the Priory Neotsbury. It was badly damaged
at the time of the Danish incursions but it was restored to survive
into Norman times when it was endowed by the Clare family and given
by them to the famous Abbey of Bec in Normandy. This house, was
at the time, the greatest centre of culture and learning in the
whole of Northern Europe and their great Abbot Anselm in 1081 sent
eighteen of his monks to St Neots to replace the Saxons and re-establish
the foundation as a Benedictine Priory, a cell of the ‘mother
abbey’ of Bec.
The civil war of Stephen and Matilda in the 1140’s caused
the construction of fortifications including an incomplete ‘motte
& bailey’ castle near Eaton Mill whose outlines can still
be seen today.
For some two centuries the Priory flourished. Its buildings, which
lay along the river north of the bridge, expanded and so did the
‘new town’ that was created beside it taking the name
of the patron saint. The town’s main thoroughfares were carefully
planned out with the large market square at the centre and close
to the Priory gates. Charters were granted by Henry I at the start
of the 12th century to hold fairs and markets and these, together
with the building in 1180 of a wooden bridge over the Great Ouse,
added to the growing town’s importance and prosperity.
The good times, however, did not last too long and troubles came
to the Priory even before the Dissolution. The Priory became alien
property under the jurisdiction of Bec, and remained so during the
period of the Hundred Years War, from 1290 onwards, when it suffered
constantly from financial and physical demands. Although it gained
its freedom from foreign control in the 15th century, it never regained
its former status and its life dragged on, at a rather low ebb of
fortune, until the Dissolution in 1539 finally brought the Priory
to an end. The buildings were demolished and nothing now survives
above ground although the pillars have been excavated. There is
a plaque in Priory Lane marking the site of the gatehouse.
Despite the loss of its Priory, St Neots continued to flourish as
did its merchants, manufacturers and traders. Water-borne traffic
expanded in volume and the town actually traded with cities throughout
Europe. Internal communications by land were improved in about 1600
when the old Ouse bridge was replaced by a more satisfactory stone
structure – a structure that lasted, in fact, until 1965 when
the present river bridge was opened.
During the Civil Wars the bridge was heavily fortified as the river
was the western Parliamentary boundary. After King Charles was captured
and the wars were thought to be over, the Essex Royalist rebellion
flared and in July 1648 a band of Royalist troops entered St Neots.
The next day they were surprised and overwhelmed by a Parliamentary
force, their leader, the Earl of Holland, being captured and later
executed
Trade in the town received a further boost in the 17th century with
the building of locks downstream on the Great Ouse to improve navigation
as far as the sea. Merchants, both then and in the 18th & 19th
centuries, built their houses with yards and storehouses extending
back to the river and Hen Brook.
St Neots has a fascinating variety of industrial and religious buildings
which supported a wide range of activities. The excellent St Neots
Museum provides much more information on these and other topics.
As well as transport by river, St Neots benefited from its strategic
position on the Great North Road and inns and hotels still survive
to remind one of the days when stage coaches called at these hostelries
to change horses and for the passengers to be refreshed. These halcyon
days were, during the 19th century, to give way to the railway.
Steady growth as a rural market town continued through the latter
part of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth
century. St Neots emerged relatively unscathed from the Second World
War. The last major flood occurred in 1947 when river levels 8 feet
above normal flooded the whole of the town centre and parts of Eaton
Ford and Eynesbury. A tablet at the corner of South Street and Brookside
commemorates the water level reached.
The Town Today
St Neots has grown rapidly since the early 1960’s, and Eynesbury
then Eaton Ford and Eaton Socon, which had been part of Bedfordshire,
were taken into the Urban District in 1965. In the seven years between
1961 and 1968 the population of the town had substantially increased
and almost 2,000 new jobs had been created. Since the end of the
Town Development Agreements, the town has continued to grow to over
27,000.
The visitor to the town will find refreshing walks by the river
that can take them through the former villages of Eynesbury, Eaton
Socon and Eaton Ford and back into the historic Market Square at
the centre of St Neots. They will also find an award winning museum
that not only provides heritage and leisure leaflets but also an
absorbing account of the heritage of the area.
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