Sawtry () is a village and civil parish in Cambridgeshire, England. Sawtry lies approximately north of Huntingdon. Sawtry is situated within Huntingdonshire which is a non-metropolitan district of Cambridgeshire as well as being a historic county of England. The village is home to over 6,000 people. UK Sawtry

History

Sawtry was listed as ''Saltrede'' in the Domesday Book in the Hundred of Normancross in Huntingdonshire, containing four manors and 56 households. By 1086 there were three churches and two priests at Sawtry. During the Dark Ages, Sawtry was divided into three parishes - All Saints, St. Andrew and Judith and originally got its name from the fact that it was a trading centre for salt, an essential commodity in the Middle Ages. The

Cistercian The Cistercians, () officially the Order of Cistercians ( la, (Sacer) Ordo Cisterciensis, abbreviated as OCist or SOCist), are a Catholic religious order of monks and nuns that branched off from the Benedictines and follow the Rule of Saint ...

Abbey of St Mary was founded in 1147 by Simon de Senlis grandson of Judith of Lens, niece of William the Conqueror who owned land in many parts of Britain but built her Manor in Sawtry and whom the Parish of Sawtry Judith is named after. The abbey took 91 years to complete and ministered to the local area both spiritually and physically. This was demolished in 1540 during the Dissolution of the Monasteries as part of the

English Reformation The English Reformation took place in 16th-century England when the Church of England broke away from the authority of the pope and the Catholic Church. These events were part of the wider European Protestant Reformation, a religious and poli ...

, although traces of the Abbey still remain. Sawtry is twinned with the Gemeinde Weimar region in Germany.

Government

As a civil parish, Sawtry has a parish council consisting of fifteen councillors. The village is represented on Huntingdonshire District Council by two councillors for the Sawtry ward, and on Cambridgeshire County Council by one councillor for the electoral division of ''Sawtry and Ellington.'' It is in the parliamentary constituency of

North West Cambridgeshire North West Cambridgeshire is a county constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election. Constituency profile Th ...

, represented at the House of Commons by Shailesh Vara ( Conservative). Sawtry was in the historic and administrative county of Huntingdonshire until 1965. From 1965, the village was part of the new administrative county of

Huntingdon and Peterborough Huntingdon and Peterborough was a short-lived administrative and geographical county in East Anglia in the United Kingdom. It existed from 1965 to 1974, when it became part of Cambridgeshire. Formation The Local Government Act 1888 created fo ...

. Then in 1974, following the

Local Government Act 1972 The Local Government Act 1972 (c. 70) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed local government in England and Wales on 1 April 1974. It was one of the most significant Acts of Parliament to be passed by the Heath Gov ...

, Sawtry became a part of the county of Cambridgeshire.

Geography

Sawtry is just west of the Fens, halfway between the city of Peterborough and the town of Huntingdon. Other nearby villages include Folksworth, Alconbury, Holme, Yaxley and Stilton. Being situated in close proximity to the A1(M), it is a sought-after location for commuters. It is approximately six miles north of the A14, and a fifty-minute car drive from both Stansted Airport and

Luton Airport London Luton Airport is an international airport located in Luton, Bedfordshire, England, situated east of the town centre, and north of Central London. The airport is owned by London Luton Airport Ltd (LLAL), a company wholly owned by L ...

Transport

The Bullock Road, an ancient droveway, now a byway, runs on the ridge to the west of Sawtry. The A1(M), originally the Roman Ermine Street, then the Great North Road, runs immediately to the east of the village. The

East Coast Main Line The East Coast Main Line (ECML) is a electrified railway between London and Edinburgh via Peterborough, Doncaster, York, Darlington, Durham and Newcastle. The line is a key transport artery on the eastern side of Great Britain running broa ...

railway runs a mile east of the village. Ordnance Survey maps from the 1920s show a narrow-gauge agricultural tramway running for a mile north east from Sawtry Roughs Farm (now demolished) to an interchange with the then Great Northern Railway.

Demography

Population

In the period 1801 to 1901 the population of Sawtry was recorded every ten years by the UK census. During this time the population was in the range of 790 (the lowest was in 1801) and 1,393 (the highest was in 1851). From 1901, a census was taken every ten years with the exception of 1941 (due to the Second World War). The separate parishes of Sawtry All Saints and Sawtry St Judith were combined into the single civil parish of Sawtry between 1931 and 1951. All population census figures from report ''Historic Census figures Cambridgeshire to 2011'' by ''Cambridgeshire Insight''. In 2011, the parish covered an area of and the population density of Sawtry in 2011 was 667.3 persons per square mile (257.6 per square kilometre).

Culture and community

Sawtry has two public houses: The Bell and the Greystones. It also has an ex-services and working men's club. There is an infant school and a junior school in Sawtry; and a

secondary school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' secondary education, lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) ...

(

Sawtry Village Academy Sawtry Village Academy (formerly Sawtry Community College) is a co-education secondary school and sixth form located in the village of Sawtry, Cambridgeshire a short distance from Peterborough. Sawtry Community College converted to academy st ...

) which educates many young people from nearby villages as well as Sawtry itself. Other amenities also include the local butchers, doctors, vets, garage, takeaway houses, the Co-Op, and multiple hair and beauty salons.

Religious sites

The Church of All Saints is the

Church of England parish church A parish church in the Church of England is the church which acts as the religious centre for the people within each Church of England parish (the smallest and most basic Church of England administrative unit; since the 19th century sometimes ca ...

. Methodist Worship takes place at Sawtry Methodist Church. There is also a Roman Catholic community, served by the parish of St Luke, Peterborough.