Ramsey, Cambridgeshire
| Ramsey | |
|---|---|
 High Street, Ramsey |
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 Ramsey
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| Ramsey shown within Cambridgeshire | |
| Population | 8,479 (2011) |
| OS grid reference | TL2885 |
| District | |
| Shire county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | HUNTINGDON |
| Postcode district | PE26 |
| Dialling code | 01487 |
| Police | Cambridgeshire |
| Fire | Cambridgeshire |
| Ambulance | East of England |
| EU Parliament | East of England |
| UK Parliament | |
Ramsey is a small market town and civil parish in Cambridgeshire, England. Ramsey lies approximately 9 miles (14 km) north of Huntingdon. Ramsey is situated within Huntingdonshire which is a non-metropolitan district of Cambridgeshire as well as being a historic county of England. The parish includes the settlements of Ramsey Forty Foot, Ramsey Heights, Ramsey Mereside, Ramsey Hollow and Ramsey St Mary's.
The town grew up around Ramsey Abbey, a Benedictine monastery. The town manor is built on the site of (and using materials from) the ancient Abbey and is the seat of the Lords de Ramsey, major landowners in Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire. The remains of the Abbey are now home to part of the town's secondary school. Abbey College, Ramsey resulted from the amalgamation of the previous two secondary schools, Ailwyn School and Ramsey Abbey School.
Besides a Palaeolithic axe discovered in Victoria Road and seen as a chance glacial find, there is no record of prehistoric finds from the town. Roman remains are limited to stray finds of pottery.
Early and Middle Saxon Ramsey remains elusive. For the later Anglo-Saxon period, documentary evidence for the foundation of the tenth century Benedictine abbey at Ramsey has been recently substantiated by archaeological evidence for activity associated with the pre-Conquest monastery.
Tradition has it that Ailwyn, foster brother of King Edgar, founded a hermitage at Ramsey. It received a series of substantial grants of land by King Edgar who confirmed all the privileges in 975, including the banlieu. The abbey experienced the transition to Norman rule without difficulty and in the eleventh century it witnessed a period of rebuilding. In the civil war between Stephen and Matilda the monastery was badly damaged and impoverished. Geoffrey de Mandeville expelled the monks in 1143 and used the buildings as a fortress. However, during the thirteenth and fourteenth century the house had a succession of wealthy abbots who embarked on a series of costly building programmes. The Black Death brought prosperity to a temporary halt, and by the end of the fourteenth century the house was financially decayed. The abbey soon recovered and continued to thrive until its dissolution in 1539. At the Dissolution the site of the monastery, its land and associated granges at Bodsey and Biggin were given to Richard Williams (alias Cromwell) who dismantled the buildings and sold off the material. The properties remained with the Williams/Cromwell family until 1676.
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Wikipedia