Kirtling, together with Kirtling Green and Kirtling Towers, is a scattered settlement in the south-eastern edge of the English county of

Cambridgeshire Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfor ...

. It forms a

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

with the nearby village of

Upend Upend is a hamlet in the east of Cambridgeshire. It is south-east of Newmarket and lies in the same parish as Kirtling. Until the 15th century Upend was called Upheme which is old English for "the up-dwelling". Upend may once have been a sep ...

to its north. The population of the settlement is included in the

of Woodditton.

Heritage

From the 16th to the 19th centuries, Kirtling was known as Catlidge. Upend was originally called Upheme –

old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

for "the up-dwelling". Upend may once have been a separate village, but it had been absorbed into Kirtling before 1066. By 1086, Kirtling had become the most heavily populated parish in the neighbourhood. A rich Cambridgeshire landowner named Oswi and his wife Leofflaed gave the parish of Kirtling to

Ely Abbey Ely Abbey was an Anglo-Saxon monastic establishment on the Isle of Ely first established in 673 by Æthelthryth the daughter of Anna, King of East Anglia. The first establishment was destroyed by the Danes in 870, but Edgar, King of England re-est ...

around 1000. It later belonged to Earl (later King) Harold, who died in 1066. By 1086 it was probably held by an Englishman named Frawine of Kirtling. All Saints Parish Church is a Grade I listed building, dating back to the 13th century.

Kirtling Tower Kirtling Tower was a medieval castle and Tudor country house in Kirtling, Cambridgeshire, England, of which the gatehouse still remains. History The first documentary records for Kirtling Tower date from 1219, and the 13th century Kirtling Cast ...

is also a Grade I listed building, its gatehouse built about 1530 by

Edward North, 1st Baron North Edward North, 1st Baron North ( 1504 – 1564) was an English peer and politician. He was the Clerk of the Parliaments 1531–1540 and Lord Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire 1557–1564. A successful lawyer, he was created the first Baron North, gi ...

Dudley North, 4th Baron North Dudley North, 4th Baron North, Order of the Bath, KB (160224 June 1677) of Kirtling Tower, Cambridgeshire was an English politician, who sat in the House of Commons of England, House of Commons at various times between 1628 and 1660. Life North ...

, politician and polymath, was buried at Kirtling on 27 June 1677. His granddaughter

Dudleya North The Hon. Dudleya North (July 1675–25 April 1712) was an English aristocrat, orientalist, linguist and classical scholar. Early life Dudleya North was born at the house of her father Charles North, 5th Baron North (c. 1636–1691) in Leices ...

, an orientalist and linguist, was buried here in 1712.

John Crichton-Stuart, 2nd Marquess of Bute John Crichton-Stuart, 2nd Marquess of Bute, Knight of the Thistle, KT, Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (10 August 1793 – 18 March 1848), styled Lord Mount Stuart between 1794 and 1814, was a wealthy Scottish aristocrat and industrialist in Ge ...

built almshouses in Kirtling in 1842 in memory of his late wife Lady Maria (died 1841).

Population

The population of the parish peaked at 909 in 1851, then fell below 800 in 1880, 600 in 1910, 500 in 1930 and to 300 in 1971. The population (including Upend) at the 2011 census was 327.

References

External links

Detailed BBC website about the parish church
{{authority control Villages in Cambridgeshire Civil parishes in Cambridgeshire Burial sites of the Stuart of Bute family East Cambridgeshire District