Welcome to Alconbury

View over Alconbury Brook and the two bridges

 

The village and parish of Alconbury in Huntingdonshire.

Alconbury was given by King John to David Earl of Huntingdon, whose son John gave it to Sir Stephen de Segrave. After remaining in this family for about a hundred years it passed, by the marriage of Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of John de Segrave, to John de Mowbray, circa 1350, and so, by heir-ship, to the Lords Berkeley. Maurice 5th Lord Berkeley, died seized of it in the 22nd year of King Henry VII (circa 1507). In the 17th year of King Henry III (circa 1233) Gilbert Basset, who was an outlaw, attacked and burnt Alconbury, then the property of his relative, Stephen de Segrave. John Bedell was Lord of the Manor in 1656, but in 1798 it was the property of Robert Booth. The present (1910) Lord of the Manor is G J Rust.

It was in this parish, in the year 1780, that the murder of a drummer boy by his companion took place, which suggested to Thomas Barham the poem of “The Dead Drummer of Salisbury Plain.” The site of the gibbet upon which the murderer was executed in 1786 is still well known (1910).

Alconbury is a delightful village, with tiny white footbridges over the brook, white houses with crumpled-up roofs, and an Elizabethan manor house with dainty gables, it has it its keeping one of the finest 13th century churches in the county, with a 17th century farmhouse and an 18th century barn at the gate.

The stately church in Alconbury is famous for its chancel, long and rather narrow, with stones chiselled in the 12th century in its rough walls, and a buttress with a fragment fo interlaced carving thought to be Saxon. Very beautiful are the 13th century lancet windows. The 15th century roof is carved with bosses and enriched with eight winged angels, one with a lute thee others with wreaths, palms and shields. There are traces of original painting on the walls, and an unusual communion table. A curious incident occurred in connection with the tower, the belfry and spire which were thoroughly restored in 1876, but work was scarcely finished when it was found that the lower part of the tower was unsafe and must be re-built, and this was accomplished while the upper part was supported on a stout timber shoring, a circumstance which is now recorded by a brass in the church.

Alconbury is one of the parishes of the District of Huntingdonshire, whose administrative centre is Huntingdon, the other principle towns being St Ives home of the Chapel on the Bridge, St Neots the largest town in the County of Cambridgeshire, the Roman town of Godmanchester and Ramsey site of the former Abbey.

 

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