OS Grid Reference: 52°37'N 0°06'W
Name Origin: Old English þhornig island overgrown with thorn bushes.
656
... Amid these discussions, the abbot [Saxulf] desired that he [king Wulfhere] grant him something he desired of him, and the king granted it to him. "I have here God-fearing monks, who would spend their lives in an anchorite's cell, if they knew where; but here is an island men call Ancarig, and I desire that we might build a monastry to the glory of St Mary, that those who live there might live their lives in peace and in quiet." The king answered this: "Beloved Saxulf, not only what you ask, but all things that I know you long for on our Lord's behalf I approve and grant ..."1049
... The year Eadnoth, bishop of Oxfordshire, passed away, and Oswi, abbot in Thorney, and Wulfnorth, abbot in Westminster ...1075
... Leofric, then abbot of Peterborough, was with that same campaign [king William's campaign in Normandy], fell sick there, came home and was dead after that on All Saint's Eve; God have mercy on his soul. In his day was all happiness and all good in Peterborough; he was dear to all folk, so that the king gave St Peter and him the abbacy in Burton-on-Trent, that in Coventry which eorl Leofric his uncle had founded, that of Crowland, and that of Thorney.1154
... Martin, abbot of Peterborough ... sickened and was dead on January 2nd. The monks within a day chose from amongst themselves, William de Waterville he is called, a good cleric and a good man, well loved by the king and by all good men. In church they buried the abbot solemnly. Soon the chosen abbot and the monks with him fared to Oxford, to the king, and he gave him the abbacy. He went soon to Lincoln and was there blessed as abbot before he came home. Later, he was received with much honour at Peterborough, with a great procession; so he was also at Ramsay, at Thorney, at Crowland, Spalding, St Albans, and now is abbot; he has made a fine beginning. Christ grant him as good an end.
LAND OF THORNEY CHURCH
In the Two Hundreds of ELY
The Abbot of TORNY holds 4 hides in Whittlesey [Whittlesey Mere, on which the Abbot of Thorney had two boats, is entered in HUN]. Land for 6 ploughs. In lordship 2 hides; 2 ploughs there; 16 villagers, 18 acres each; 6 cottagers with 4 ploughs. 1 slave; meadow for 6 ploughs; pasture for the village livestock; from the weir 4s and besides this 20s from fish. Total value £6; when acquired 20s; before 1066 £7.
This manor lay and lies in the lordship of the Church of Thorney, but the Abbot of Ely has the jurisdiction.
A Topographical Dictionary of England, Samuel Lewis, 1831:
THORNEY, a market town and parish in the hundred of WISBEACH, Isle of ELY, county of CAMBRIDGE, 35 miles (N.W.) from Cambridge, and 86 (N.) from London, containing 1970 inhabitants. This place derived its original name of Ankeridge from a monastery for hermits, or anchorites, founded here, in 662, by Saxulphus, abbot of Peterborough, who became its first prior; the edifice having been destroyed by the Danes, the site lay waste until 972, when Ethelwold, Bishop of Winchester, founded upon it a Benedictine abbey, in honour of the Virgin, which became so opulent that, at the dissolution, its revenue was valued at £508. 12. 5.: of this abbey, which was a mitred one, the only remains are portions of the parish church, a gateway, and some fragments of the old walls. A Literary Society was established, in 1823, which possesses a good library. The market, granted in 1638, is on Thursday; and fairs are held on July 1st and September 21st, for horses and cattle, and on Whit-Monday is a pleasure fair. Upwards of three thousand sheep are sent annually from this district to the London market. The petty sessions are held here.
The living is a perpetual curacy, in the peculiar jurisdiction and patronage of the Duke of Bedford. The church, which is dedicated to St. Botolph, and originally formed the nave of the conventual church, built about 1128, is partly in the Norman style of architecture, with portions in the later English: in the churchyard are several tombs of the French refugees, of whom a colony settled here about the middle of the sixth century, having been employed, by the Earl of Bedford, in draining the fens. A school-house was erected by a member of the illustrious house of Russell, and the present Duke of Bedford allows the master a salary of £20 per annum for the instruction of poor children: ten or twelve poor families also are supported in some almshouses by the munificence of his Grace.
The Comprehensive Gazetteer of England and Wales, ed J.H.F.Brabner, 1895:
Thorney, a small town and a parish in the Isle of Ely and Cambridgeshire. The town stands on a slight elevation, amid the quondam marshes of the Nen, with a station on the Midland and Great Northern joint railway, 7 miles ENE of Peterborough. It has a post, money order, and telegraph office under Peterborough. It was anciently called Aucarig and Thorn-ie the latter signifying "the island of thorns;" rose round a monastery founded in 662; has been almost entirely rebuilt; and has a hotel, a church, a reading-room, and library, and horse fairs on 1 July and 21 Sept. The ancient monastery was soon ruined by the Danes; was restored or rebuilt in 972, as a Benedictine abbey, by Bishop Ethelwold; had attached to it an hospital for the poor; gave its abbots a right to a seat in the upper house of parliament; and was given at the dissolution to the Eussells. The abbey church was rebuilt in 1089, and became parochial in 1638; but the present church includes little more than the west end of the nave of the ancient one, has additions of 1840-41, and was thoroughly restored in 1888. The parish comprises 17,802 acres of land and 40 of water; population, 1863. The property belongs to the Duke of Bedford. The parish council consists of eleven members. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Ely; gross value, £420 with residence. There is a Primitive Methodist chapel.
Kelly's Directory of Cambridgeshire 1900:
THORNEY (anciently called "Ankerig") is a parish and village in the Isle of Ely, forming a liberty in itself, on the north-west border of the county adjoining Northamptonshire, close to the Catwater, with a station on the Peterborough and Wisbech section of the Midland and Great Northern joint railway, and 2½ miles west from Wryde station on the same line, and is in the same parish, 14 miles west from Wisbech, 7 from Peterborough and 86 from London by road, in the Northern division of the County, hundred of Wisbech, petty sessional division of Whittlesey, union and county court district of Peterborough, rural deanery of Wisbech and in the peculiar archidiaconal jurisdiction of the Bishop of Ely. The parish is surrounded by long drains leading to the port of Wisbech; a complete system of drainage of the fens has been carried out, at a cost exceeding £400,000; the village is lighted with gas from the works of the Thorney Gas Co. and supplied with water from works erected by the late Duke of Bedford K.G. Some of the chief roads, in parts of the parish, have avenues of fine trees; the Causeway and Willow Hall and Whittlesey roads being most noticeable. The church of St. Mary and St. Botolph, originally that of the abbey and 290 feet in length, but now only 117, was rebuilt in 1089-1108, and in 1638 fitted up as a parish church; it is in mixed styles of Norman and Perpendicular, and consists of nave of five bays with triforiam, transepts, north and south porches and two western turrets, one of which contains a clock and one bell: the transepts were added in 1840 and 1841, under the direction of Mr. Blore: the stained east window represents, in 21 compartments, copied from windows in Canterbury Cathedral, the reputed miracles of Thomas a Becket: the organ, erected at a cost of £320, was enlarged in 1858; at a further cost of £220, defrayed by Francis, 7th Duke of Bedford K.G.: the west front, of massive Norman work, has square flanking towers, surmounted by panelled turrets of Perpendicular date, reaching a height of 82 feet: above the west window are niches with images and elaborate panelling: in 1888 the interior was restored and reseated with open oak benches, the galleries removed, the outlay, amounting to £2,910, being defrayed at the sole cost of the late duke: there are 370 sittings, 84 being free. The earliest register dates from 1653. There is also a register of baptisms in the French language, which, together with a monumental tablet in the church to the memory of its first French minister, records the fact that there was here a congregation of French Protestants, who had fled from the persecutions in their native country. The living is a vicarage, net yearly value £420, in the gift of the Duke of Bedford, and held since 1885 by the Rev. William Symons M.A. of Trinity College, Cambridge. There are district churches at Wrydecroft and Knarr Fem respectively, each seating about 120 persons; the Rev. Frederick Ernest Doubleday is curate. Here is a Primitive Methodist chapel, seating 130 persons. The Abbey rooms, opposite the church, used for meetings and entertainments, will hold 200 persons. The Literary Society, founded in 1854, has a news-room, billiard and bagatelle rooms and a library of 500 volumes. The People's Refreshment House Association Limited have an hotel here. The place has a right to hold a market on Thursdays, but this privilege has fallen into disuse: fairs for horses are held on July 1st and September 21st, and are well attended by dealers and others from all parts of the kingdom. A monastery for anchorites was founded here in 662, by Saxulf, abbot of Peterborough, but in 810, having then a prior and several monks, it was wasted by the Danes, and in 972 was restored by St. Ethelwold, Bishop of Winchester, as a house for monks of the Benedictine order, and dedicated to SS. Mary and Botolph: the members of this house exerted themselves much, like most of their brethren, for bettering the neighbourhood; and William of Malmesbury, in the time of Henry II. speaks in glowing terms of the beauty of the place, the productiveness of its fields, orchards and vineyards, and called it "the image of Paradise": the abbots attained to great power, were mitred and sat in Parliament, and at the Dissolution the income was stated to be £411 12s. 11d. yearly. That the abbey was a building of vast extent is manifest from the remains of foundations laid bare at sundry times at great distances from the still remaining portion of the church. The whole parish is the property of the Duke of Bedford by grant from the Crown to Francis, 4th Earl of Bedford, in 1634, who by enterprising and energetic measures carried out under the direction of the celebrated Dutch engineer, Cornelius Vermuyden, drained a vast tract of low lands of about 2,000 square acres, called the "Bedford Level", at that time a mere waste; this great work was completed in 1652, and the Level now ranks amongst the most fertile districts in the kingdom: the drainage of the Great Level subsequently in 1810 occupied the attention of Rennie, and in 1822 of Telford, both eminent English engineers. The soil is chiefly a black vegetable loam, in parts silty clay; subsoil, rich clay, sea deposit. The chief crops are wheat and oats, with due proportion of rich grazing land. The area of the parish is 17,802 acres of land and 40 of water; rateable value, £17,001; the population in 1891 was 1,863.
SCHOOLS
A School Board of 5 members was formed Feb. 11, 1875 with 5 schools under its management; A. C. Thacker, clerk to the board.
Board (boys), opened in 1875 for 120 boys; average attendance 48; Alfred Law, master.
Board (girls & infants), erected 1850 for 200 children average attendance, 55 girls &38 infants; Miss Laura Crabb, girls' mistress; Miss Elizabeth Reilly infants' mistress
Wrydecroft, for 80 Children; average attendance, 41; Miss J Kennedy, mistress
Knarr Fen (mixed), erected in 1880, for 80 children; average attendance, 52; Miss Hannah Taylor, mistress
RAILWAYS STATIONS
Thorney, John Miles, station master
Wryde, John Thompson, station master
CARRIERS
To Peterborough, William Cousins & William James Tomkins, on Wed & Sat.
The troubles encountered by the Huguenot refugees in Sandtoft led many to try their fortune in the fens and marshes of the Bedford Level. As the italian historian Gregorio Leti wrote in 1683:
... that some Frenchmen who had rented lands in the county of Yorkshire, near to Doncaster, having been molested by the peasantry of that place, heard that the Earl of Bedford possessed an estate here (ie, at Thorney) which was almost unimhabitable, and resolving to make their fortune by industry, they asked him to let them rent it (now more than forty years ago) that they might drain and cultivate it. the Earl had no hestitation in granting a request so advantageous to himself, and making certain honourable conditions with the Frenchmen, he allowed them to commence, and after immense fatigue and expense, the drained the greater part of it.
The work of draining the Bedford Levels was started in 1630 by Cornelius Vermuyden, under an agreement made with Francis, Earl of Bedford. The original contract for this work was annulled, but Vermuyden secured the confidence of the Earl of Bedford, and was able to interest many of the original participants in the drainage of the Isle of Axholme to become adventurers in the drainging of the Bedford level.
The settlers were granted many privileges, both under a petition of Sir William Russel, and under an ordinance of Cromwell dated 26 May 1654 which said, inter alia that
if any person or persons of a foreign nation, in league and amity with the Commonwealth, being Protestants, shall become purchaser or farmer of any lands, part of the said 95,000 acres (these were the 95,000 acres originally promised to Vermuyden under the annulled contract), the said person or persons, their heirs, executors and administrators, shall be accounted free denizens of this Commonwealth, and enjoy the like privileges and advantages for descent to their children, dower to their wives, and otherwise, as denizens of this Commonwealth, ought to enjoy.
These strongly encouraged Huguenots to settle in Thorney, coming not just from Sandtoft, but also Canterbury, Norwich, and Guisnes near Calais. [There is an analysis of this pattern of settlement]
This is not to say the Huguenots were universally welcomed: the native fenmen, with ancient rights of fishing and fowling under threat from the drainage, made sporadic attempts to thwart them. But the resistance did not rise to the levels of violence seen in Axholme, and eventually died out. Nor was a return on investment sure: some of the lands were sold on by adventurers who had decided the game was not worth the candle, and some were forfeited by non-payment of scotts and tax.
But many became rich, and the arduous work of generations eventually achieved the aims of the Bedford Level Charter of Incorporation, to:
make the aforesaid fen-ground (from which being covered with water little advantage redounds to mankind except some few river fish and water-fowl) into land, meadows and pastures to the great advantage as well as of those parts, as of the public, in which they have made such a progress, that hereafter, as it was hoped, in those places which lately presented nothing to the eyes of the beholder but great waters, and a few reeds thinly scattered here and there, under the Divine mercy might be seen pleasant pastures of cattle and kyne and many houses belonging to the inhabitants.
Associated Families: Leahair Sigee Wroot
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