Great Paxton
| Great Paxton | |
|---|---|
 Great Paxton church from the South West |
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 Great Paxton
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| Great Paxton shown within Cambridgeshire | |
| Population | 1,007 (2011 census) |
| OS grid reference | TL217629 |
| • London | 51 miles (82 km) |
| District | |
| Shire county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | ST. NEOTS |
| Postcode district | PE19 |
| Dialling code | 01480 |
| EU Parliament | East of England |
| UK Parliament | |
Great Paxton is a village and civil parish in Cambridgeshire, England lying 2.6 miles (4.2 km) north of St Neots in the Great Ouse river valley.
The population was 1,007 in the 2011 census. Despite its name, Great Paxton is much smaller than the neighbouring village of Little Paxton.
In 1085 William the Conqueror ordered that a survey should be carried out across his kingdom to discover who owned which parts and what it was worth. The survey took place in 1086 and the results were recorded in what, since the 12th century, has become known as the Domesday Book. Starting with the king himself, for each landholder within a county there is a list of their estates or manors; and, for each manor, there is a summary of the resources of the manor, the amount of annual rent that was collected by the lord of the manor both in 1066 and in 1086, together with the taxable value.
Great Paxton was listed in the Domesday Book in the Hundred of Toseland in Huntingdonshire; the name of the settlement was written as Pachstone and Parchestune in the Domesday Book. In 1086 there was just one manor at Great Paxton; the annual rent paid to the lord of the manor in 1066 had been £29.2 and the rent had increased to £33.5 in 1086.
The Domesday Book does not explicitly detail the population of a place but it records that there was 69 households at Great Paxton. There is no consensus about the average size of a household at that time; estimates range from 3.5 to 5.0 people per household. Using these figures then an estimate of the population of Great Paxton in 1086 is that it was within the range of 241 and 345 people.
The Domesday Book uses a number of units of measure for areas of land that are now unfamiliar terms, such as hides and ploughlands. In different parts of the country, these were terms for the area of land that a team of eight oxen could plough in a single season and are equivalent to 120 acres (49 hectares); this was the amount of land that was considered to be sufficient to support a single family. By 1086, the hide had become a unit of tax assessment rather than an actual land area; a hide was the amount of land that could be assessed as £1 for tax purposes. The survey records that there were 39 ploughlands at Great Paxton in 1086 and that there was the capacity for a further two ploughlands. In addition to the arable land, there was 80 acres (32 hectares) of meadows, 1,043 acres (422 hectares) of woodland and three water mills at Great Paxton.
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