Towns, Cities, Villages and Hamlets

Samuel Lewis's Topographical Gazeetter 1831

WILBURTON, a parish in the southern division of the hundred of WITCHFORD, Isle of ELY, county of CAMBRIDGE, 6½ miles (S. W.) from Ely, containing 465 inhabitants. The living is a perpetual curacy, in the archdeaconry and diocese of Ely, endowed with £200 private benefaction, and £500 royal bounty, and in the patronage of the Archdeacon of Ely. The church is a handsome structure, dedicated to St. Peter. There is a place of worship for Baptists. The parsonage house was anciently the seat of the Archdeacons of Ely, at which Henry VII. and his son, Prince Henry, were entertained for several days, when that sovereign came to visit the shrine of St. Ethelreda at Ely.

For the Family Historian details available records can be found on the Wilburton page of GENUKI Cambridgeshire.

This village southernly situated, contains 2610 acres, and has a population of about 500 souls. The amount of assessed property is £3,310. The parish is named after Wilburtus, a Saxon, who was killed bv the Danes in 807. The living is a perpetual curacy in the deanery of Ely, but not in charge, and returned at 268 nett per annum. The archdeacon of Ely is patron, and the Rev. J. Fell, master of the grammar school, Huntingdon, is the incumbent."

[A BRIEF HISTORY OF ELY and neighbouring villages in the Isle by J.H. Clements 1868]

The church of St. Peter is an edifice of stone in the Gothic style of the 15th century, retaining traces of work pronounced by the late Sir Gilbert Scott to be Saxon and Norman, and consisting of nave, north transept, south porch and a western tower containing a clock and 6 bells : it was restored in 1851, and the transept added in 1868 by Albert and Oliver Claude Pell esqrs. and the Rev. Beauchamp H. St. John Pell M.A. rector of Ickenham, Middlesex, in memory of their parents, Sir Albert Pell kt. D.C.L. king's sergeant-at-law and judge of the Court of Review, who died in 1832, and the Hon. Dame Margaret Letitia Matilda Pell, third daughter of Henry Beauchamp, 12th Lord St. John of Bletsoe, who died in 1868 : in the chancel is a window to a daughter of Lady Pell who died in 1855 : the rood screen was restored in 1893 by the parishoners and friends in memory of O.C. Pell esq. D.L., J.P. who died in 1891 : over the porch is a priest's chamber : in 1921 a stained glass window was inserted in the north side of the church, in memory of the men of the parish who fell in the Great War, 1914-18; the cost, a little over £200, was subscribed by the parishioners : there are 240 sittings. The register dates from the year 1730.

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

Domesday Book Entry

To be completed

Military History

The men and women on the war memorial are fully documented with military details, photographs and personal details.