Towns, Cities, Villages and Hamlets

Samuel Lewis's Topographical
Gazeetter 1831

STOW cum QUY, a parish in the hundred of STAINE, county of CAMBRIDGE, 5 miles (N. E.) from Cambridge, containing 378 inhabitants. The living is a perpetuaI curacy, in the archdeaconry and diocese of Ely, and in the patronage of the Bishop of Ely. The church is dedicated to St. Mary. There is a small endowed school. Jeremy Collier, the celebrated nonjuring divine, was born here in 1650; he died in 1730.

	For the Family Historian details available records can be found on the Stow-cum-Quy page of GENUKI Cambridgeshire.
	The Staine Hundred Local History Society. The Staine Hundred covers the parishes of Bottisham, Great Wibraham, Little Wilbraham, Swaffham Bulbeck, Swaffham Prior, and Stow-cum-Quy.

STOW-with-QUY is a parish, with a station 1 mile north from the centre of the village on the Cambridge and Mildenhall branch of the London and North Eastern railway, 5 miles east-north-east from Cambridge, in the hundred of Staine, Bottisham petty sessional division, union of Chesterton, county court district of Cambridge, rural deanery of Quy and archdeaconry and diocese of Ely. The stream called 'Quy water' flows through the parish.

The church of St. Mary, erected circa 1340, and situated close to the main road, is an ancient embattled edifice of stone in the Decorated style, consisting of chancel, clerestoried nave of four bays, aisles, north and south porches and an embattled western tower containing 5 bells: the nave arcades, with the exception of an Early English arch to the south-east, are Decorated; the clerestory is Perpendicular; the rood screen, of the same date, is in five compartments, and has been restored: the north aisle, also Perpendicular, has some modern memorials to the Martin family, of Quy Hall: both aisles have slight projections at their eastern ends, forming quasi-transepts: each transept has a piscina: the font, an octagon, is Perpendicular, with blank shields on the sides; the church contains a curious brass with effigies of a man in armour, his wife (figure now lost), 12 sons and four daughters, and a mutilated inscription, which when perfect commemorated John Ansty esq. formerly lord of this 'ville,' and founder of Ansty's Chantrey, and Johanna his wife; he died circa 1465: there is also a brass with arms and inscription to Edward Stern, 1641, and some 17th century slabs inscribed to the Lawrence family: the chancel was rebuilt about 1740 by Thomas Martyn esq. and the church thoroughly restored in 1879-82: in 1883 the churchyard wall was rebuilt by Thomas Musgrave Francis esq. D.L., J.P. who in 1928 erected a tablet to commemorate Jeremy Collier, the church historian, and two former vicars of Quy, Richard Sterne, 1621-2, afterwards Archbishop of York, 1664-83, and Thomas Herring, 1719-21, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, 1747-57: there are 230 sittings. The register dates from the year 1650.

There is a small Wesleyan chapel here.

Quy Hall is the residence of Thomas Musgrave Francis esq. M.A., D.L., J.P. who is lord of the manor and principal landowner. The soil is various. The chief crops are wheat, barley and roots. The area is 1,872 acres of land and 7 of water; the population in 1921 was 322.

[Extracts from Kelly's Directory - Cambridgeshire - 1929]