A tithe was a payment by a farmer of one tenth of the annual production of his farm to maintain the established church. Originally the payment was in kind, but by the 1830s this was out of date, and the Tithe Commutation Act 1836 replaced payments in kind by a money payment (the "tithe rentcharge"). A Tithe Commission was set up, which visited parishes across the country and settled the terms of the commutation of tithes, by drawing up a document setting out landowners' individual liabilities - the tithe apportionment. Each apportionment was supported by a map showing affected property. A copy of each map was then sent to the Diocese; this set has now been deposited at Huntingdonshire Archives.
Not every parish had a tithe map drawn up: in others, allotments were made in lieu of tithes at the time of inclosure. Moreover the Commissioners were concerned only to identify the properties for which tithe was payable, so the maps are often not as detailed as researchers might hope.
William Foot's Maps for Local History (PRO Readers Guide no. 9) contains a concise introduction to tithe maps. There are also relevant chapters in Paul Hindle Maps for Local History (1988) and W.E.Tate The Parish Chest (1951).
Please follow the links in the right hand column to see lists of tithe records by Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire Archives.