Little Paxton
| Little Paxton | |
|---|---|
 High Street |
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 Little Paxton
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| Little Paxton shown within Cambridgeshire | |
| Population | 3,244 (2011 census. Including Southoe) |
| OS grid reference | TL195628 |
| • 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 |
| Police | Cambridgeshire |
| Fire | Cambridgeshire |
| Ambulance | East of England |
| EU Parliament | East of England |
| UK Parliament | |
Little Paxton in Cambridgeshire, England is a village and civil parish that lies 5 miles (8.0 km) south of Huntingdon and 1.7 miles (2.7 km) north of St Neots. It is in the district and historic county of Huntingdonshire. Until the 1970s it was a minor village and the church was under threat of closure. The building of a housing estate and a junior school revived its fortunes and the establishment of the Paxton Pits Nature Reserve around part of the nearby gravel pits has brought visitors to the village.
The nature reserve features lakes, woodland and part of the Ouse floodplain and is home to large numbers of cormorants and many summer visitors such as nightingales and a large number of passerine birds. Grebes, ducks and geese have colonised the lakes.
The population of the village of Little Paxton is now much larger than that of Great Paxton.
Little Paxton is not explicitly mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 but is covered by the entry for Great Paxton (or Pachstone as it was then). At that time the settlement of Pacstone had 69 households, which is considered to be a very large settlement for that period, and contained 3 mills and a church (presumably the church at Great Paxton). All of the lands at Little Paxton were held by Countess Judith who was a niece of William the Conqueror. There were a number of fisheries on the river Great Ouse at Little Paxton, the earliest of which can be traced back to 1544. The open fields in the parish were enclosed by an Act of Parliament in 1811–12.
The quarrying of gravel has been an important industry in Little Paxton since the 19th century when gravel from Paxton Park was used in local housing. It was in the 1940s that a much large scale quarrying operation began in the area to the north of Little Paxton village. In 1989, the Paxton Pits nature reserve opened on the site of those quarries which by then were no longer used.
As a civil parish, Little Paxton has a parish council. The parish council is elected by the residents of the parish who have registered on the electoral roll; the parish council is the lowest tier of government in England. A parish council is responsible for providing and maintaining a variety of local services including allotments and a cemetery; grass cutting and tree planting within public open spaces such as a village green or playing fields. The parish council reviews all planning applications that might affect the parish and makes recommendations to Huntingdonshire District Council, which is the local planning authority for the parish. The parish council also represents the views of the parish on issues such as local transport, policing and the environment. The parish council raises its own tax to pay for these services, known as the parish precept, which is collected as part of the Council Tax. The parish council consist of fourteen councillors.
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Wikipedia