Sites to Visit in Huntingdonshire

Booth's Hill, Ramsey (NGR TL 292 848)

Booth's Hill is situated on the corner of Hollow Lane and Abbey Road, at the south-east edge of Ramsey Abbey. The monument consists of a moat enclosing an irregular island with a motte (castle mound). It is believed to be the site of a small castle built by Geoffrey de Mandeville, who took possession of Ramsey Abbey in c.AD 1140-44 and housed his soldiers there. The mound has been adapted into an icehouse in recent years.

Visible today are the well-preserved moat and earthworks. Access to the locked icehouse can be prior arranged with the Cambridgeshire Historic Environment Record. 

Booth's Hill is a Scheduled Ancient Monument - please treat it with respect and do not use metal detectors there.

Great Stukeley Roman barrows (NGR centred on TL 219 746)

The barrows (burial mounds) are situated either side of the B1034 running through Great Stukeley, one in the recreation ground, the other opposite the Church of the Latter Day Saints. Burial practices varied greatly in Roman times, reflecting the diversity of status, wealth and religious and cultural beliefs. Burial mounds of this type were built in the late 1st and 2nd centuries AD, and would have belonged to the wealthiest families in society. Artefacts and provisions would be placed in the barrow alongside the burial, to ensure the occupant’s transfer into the afterlife. Roman law dictated that burials could not be placed within the confines of a settlement, so cemeteries frequently developed alongside the roads leading out of the major towns, with monuments placed along the roadside to commemorate the individual.

Each of the barrows survives as a large conical mound up to 2 metres tall, with a surrounding ditch. The B1034 marks the route of Ermine Street through the Stukeleys. Ermine Street is one of Britain’s most famous Roman Roads and linked Lincoln and London, passing through the Roman towns at Water Newton and Godmanchester.

Great Stukeley Roman barrows are both Scheduled Ancient Monuments - please treat them with respect and do not use metal detectors there.

Huntingdon Castle (NGR TL 240 714)

Huntingdon Castle lies in the southern part of the town near the bridge, and can be accessed from either Castle Moat Road or Castle Hill. An early fortification may have existed on the site as early as the late 9th century, although all evidence of this has been destroyed by later developments. The castle was built in AD 1068 by William the Conqueror, consisting of a motte (castle mound) and semi-circular shaped bailey (enclosed courtyard) to the east. The castle was surrounded by a moat on three sides, the River Ouse providing protection from the south, and was destroyed in AD 1174 when it was besieged by Henry II's armies. A windmill is shown on top of the motte on John Speed's map of Huntingdon dated to AD 1610. The defences were modified and the castle reused as a gun battery during the English Civil War, providing a highly strategic position controlling the main river crossing.

Despite being encroached upon by modern houses and the A14, the medieval motte and most of the inner bailey are visible today. Many of the ramparts dating to the Cromwellian period can also be seen.

Huntingdon Castle is a Scheduled Ancient Monument - please treat it with respect and do not use metal detectors there.

Moat and Shrunken Medieval Village, Sawtry (NGR TL 173 840)

Sawtry Shrunken Medieval Village and moat are located between All Saints Church and the A1, and can be accessed via the churchyard. Known to be the site of a Roman roadside settlement alongside Ermine Street, the majority of visible remains are medieval or later. These consist of a well-preserved square moat, house platforms and banks marking the layout of the medieval village, and remains of ridge and furrow. Many medieval villages contracted or were abandoned during the later middle ages, due to a number of factors such as population decline brought about by the Black Death. To the south of the moat runs a hollow way leading in the direction of the site of St Andrew's church.

To the north of the moat, at the summit of Tort Hill is a sunken circular earthwork 25 metres in diameter, the function of which has long been debated. Excavations in 1965 disproved the theory that it was a Roman signal station overlooking Ermine Street, and current thinking is that it was a 17th century gun battery, positioned to control movement on the Great Northern Road during the English Civil War.

Sawtry Moat and Shrunken Medieval Village is a Scheduled Ancient Monument - please treat them with respect and do not use metal detectors there.

Saint Andrew's Church, Sawtry (NGR TL 176 839)

The site of St Andrew's Church is located to the east of the A1 and can be accessed from the B1043. The church was isolated from the village of Sawtry for most of its lifetime, since the settlement contracted westwards in the later middle ages. The Medieval church was demolished in 1880 when the parishes of Sawtry St Andrews, Sawtry Judith and Sawtry All Saints were united. Sawtry Archaeological Society excavated the site of the church in the 1980s, and found little remaining of the building. Most of the building material was reused during the construction of the new All Saints Church in Sawtry in the 1880.

The graveyard at St Andrew's Church still survives and continues in use to the present day. It contains many interesting gravestones, including a slate slab commemorating a Leicestershire man killed in a duel with his best friend in 1756.

The site of Sawtry Judith village is located in the south of the parish of Sawtry between the settlement at Whitehall and Archer's Wood. The surviving earthworks consist of an irregular perimeter ditch surrounding an area of about 30 acres. The ditch encloses a central moat, a building platform and numerous other earthworks. Excavations in the central area between 1976 and 1980 identified this as the site of a grange (a farm attached to a religious house), which would have supplied the nearby Sawtry Abbey. The excavations discovered two buildings and a cobbled yard, and enough artefacts to suggest that the site may have served as a workshop for the Abbey. The buildings were abandoned during the 16th century AD, at around the same time as the monasteries were dissolved by Henry VIII in 1536.

The earthwork remains have been reduced by ploughing, but continue south-eastwards into the adjacent Archer's Wood.

Sawtry Judith Village is a Scheduled Ancient Monument - please treat it with respect and do not use metal detectors there.

More information about these and other sites is available from Cambridgeshire Historic Environment Record.