Cambridgeshire 
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Nearby Places
Nearby churches
"BOURN, anciently "Brunne" or "Burne," is a village, about 1½ miles north-east from the Old North Road station (which is in this parish) on the Bedford and Cambridge line of the London, Midland and Scottish railway, 10 north from Royston and about 9 west from Cambridge, in the hundred of Longstow union and petty sessional division of Caxton and Arrington, county court district of Cambridge, rural deanery of Bourn and archdeaconry and diocese of Ely. The Bourn brook flows through the parish. "
"The soil is clay; subsoil, gault. The chief crops are wheat, oats, barley and clover, and there is some land in pasture. The area is 4,175 acres the population in 1920 was 623."
"CAXTON END and CROW END are places in the parish."
[Kelly's Directory - 1929]
The Monumental Inscriptions for the churchyard of St. Mary 1727-1979 reside in the Cambridge Record Office. These are available, on microfiche, from the Cambridgeshire Family History Society Bookstall.
The Census Records from 1841-1891 can be found in the Cambridge Record Office. In addition the 1851 Census for Bourn is available in full transcript form, on microfiche, from the Cambridgeshire Family History Society Bookstall.
"The church of St. Mary, picturesquely situated on rising ground, is a spacious cruciform edifice of stone in the Transition Norman, Early English and Later style consisting of chancel, clerestoried nave of six bays, aisles, transepts, south porch and an embattled western tower with turret stair and containing 8 bells, two of which were added and the remainder repaired in 1924 : the tower was restored in 1912 at a cost of £960: the chancel has good sedilia of the i5th century and some carved oak benches with carved figures, one of which bears the inscription, "A. P. of B. 1537:" the roof is Perpendicular and has hammer beams with model figures of angels: the chancel arch is modern, and there remains a Perpendicular rood screen : the nave arcades are lofty and belong to the Transition Norman period, the piers being alternately circular and octagons the clerestory is lighted by quatrefoil openings with circles: in the north transept is a Late niche and aumbry: the south transept has a raised floor: the tower, which is overlapped by both aisles, opens into these and to the nave by very fine and lofty Early English arches, with an ascent of three steps under the western arch: the south porch, also Early English, has a fine cross on the gable: in the nave are some good oak benches with tracery in panels, and the south transept contains several slabs and tombs with arms to members of the Hagar family, lords of this manor about 1750, and a memorial to Henry Lyell seq.: the church plate includes a silver paten, presented by Francis Hagar in 1594, and a silver paten and chalice with the date 1569: Dowsing, the Puritan iconoclast, visited this church and destroyed two angels and some brasses and crosses on the tower and chancel: the nave was restored in 1875-8, at a cost of £1,480 : there are 420 sittings. The register dates from the year 1564."
"There is a Wesleyan chapel, restored and enlarged in 1880, with about 150 sittings."
[Kelly's Directory - 1929]
Bourn, St. Mary: The registers are at the church for baptisms from 1564, marriages from 1662 and burials from 1615. The Bishop's Transcripts for the years 1599-1679, 1694-1801 and 1813-79 can be found in the Cambridge University Library. Microfilm copies of the parish registers for baptisms 1563-70, 1592-1608, 1653-1875, marriages 1662-1875, burials 1615-22, 1640-1875 reside in the Cambridge Record Office. Index transcripts of baptisms 1563-70, 1592-1851, marriages 1599-1641, 1662-1851 and burials 1602-1861 are also available in the Cambridge Record Office.
Wesleyan Methodist Church: Records exist at the Huntingdon Record Office for the St. Neots Wesleyan Circuit of which Bourn is part.
"The scenery around this village is pretty and picturesque, affording a pleasing variety of hill and dale, finely interspersed with thick woods and shady groves. The moat and some other vestiges remain of a castle erected here by Picot, or Pigot, a Norman, to whom the Conqueror gave lands here and whose descendant, George Pigot esq. was in 1766 created Baron Pigot of Patshull, a title extinct at his death, 17 April, i777 : the castle was burnt during the barons' war in the reign of Henry III, by Richard de Irusula or de L'Isle; it was then in possession of the Peverella, from whom it descended to the Peche (now Peachey) and others. Bourn Hall, formerly the property of the family, and subsequently held by the Riggesbys Earl Be La Warr, stands on the site of the old castle and together with the surrounding estate was purchased by Major John Maclean Griffin: the Hall is an excellent specimen of the Elizabethan style, and was formerly surrounded by a moat, part of which still remains; the park contains about 23 acres with good plantations."
[Kelly's Directory - 1929]
The Bourn War Memorial has been transcribed and and the men researched, it stands at the side of the main road through the village on a triangular patch of grass at the junction to Short Street.
Millers
The first recorded windmill in Cambridgeshire was at Trumpington and is mentioned in a document dated 1260. No windmills survive from that date, but one of the oldest post mills surviving in Britain is said to be Bourn Mill. A seventeenth century deed of sale shows that the mill dates from at least 1636 when Thomas Cook of Longstowe bought it. Interestingly, Bourn Mill continued a long tradition of windmill building because it was constructed in the same style as the earliest windmills shown in thirteenth century drawings.
Land Tax: records were compiled afresh each year and contain the names of owners and occupiers in each parish, but usually there is no address or place name. These records reside in the Cambridge Record Office for the years 1798 (on microfilm), 1829-32 and 1946-48.
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[Last updated 9 August 2007 Martin Edwards]