St Ives Stadium

St Ives is a market town and civil parish in Cambridgeshire, England, 5 miles (8 km) east of Huntingdon and 12 miles (19 km) north-west of Cambridge. Historically in Huntingdonshire, St Ives is in the non-metropolitan district of the same name which covers a similar area to the historic county.

History

The township was originally known as Slepe in Anglo Saxon England. In 1001-2, a peasant is recorded as uncovering the remains of Ivo of Ramsey, a Cornish Celtic Christian Bishop and hermit while ploughing a field. The discovery led Eadnoth the Younger, an important monk and prelate to found Ramsey Abbey. Slepe was listed in the Hundred of Hurstingstone in Huntingdonshire in the Domesday Book. In 1086 there was one manor and 64 households, 29. 5ploughlands, 60 acres (24 hectares) of meadows and 1,892 acres (766 hectares) of woodland.

The importance of Ramsey Abbey grew through the Middle Ages. In the order of precedence for abbots in Parliament, Ramsey was third after Glastonbury and St Alban's. Its influence benefited the area as Slepe became St Ives and was granted a charter to become a market town, hosting one of the biggest in the country. It remains an important market on the edge of The Fens.

As St Ives was founded on the banks of the wide River Great Ouse between Huntingdon and Ely, it had become an important entrepot for trade in East Anglia. The size and prosperity of the medieval town can be still seen in its street plan. In the early 15th century, St Ives Bridge was constructed across the Great Ouse replacing an earlier crossing at this point. The six-arch stone bridge was one of only four town bridges in England to have a chapel. In the Early Medieval period, this had been a strategic location on the Great Ouse because it was the last natural crossing point or ford on the river, 80 kilometres (50 mi) from the sea. A flint reef in the riverbed created a ford; it was reused as the foundations for the stone bridge. Throughout the medieval period, it was a source of income