Thorney Abbey, Cambridgeshire Family History Guide

Thorney Abbey is an Ancient Parish in the county of Cambridgeshire.

Alternative names:

Ankeridge
Thornie
Thorney

Parish church:

Parish registers begin:

Parish registers: 1653
Bishop’s Transcripts: 1868

Nonconformists include: French Church and Wesleyan Methodist.

Table of Contents

Adjacent Parishes

Fleet, Lincolnshire
Wisbech St Mary
Newborough, Northamptonshire
Coates
Crowland, Lincolnshire
Sutton St Edmund, Lincolnshire
Holbeach, Lincolnshire
Whittlesey St Andrew
Gedney Hill, Lincolnshire
Whaplode, Lincolnshire
Eye, Northamptonshire

Thorney Abbey Parish Registers

Register of baptisms of the French Protestant refugees settled at Thorney, Cambridgeshire, 1654-1727. Transcribed and Edited by Henry Peet Publisher: Huguenot Society of London Date of publication: 1903 – This book is a free download from Parishmouse

Parish History

The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales 1870

THORNEY, a small town and a parish in the district of Peterborough and county of Cambridge. The town stands on an insulated eminence, amid the quondam marshes of the Nen, adjacent to the Peterborough and Wisbeach railway, 7 miles ENE of Peterborough. It was anciently called Ankeridge and Thornie, the latter signifying “the island of Thorns;” rose around a monastery, founded in 662; was, within the last few years, almost entirely rebuilt; and has a post-office under Peterborough, a r. station with telegraph, a hotel, a church, a reading room and library, national schools, and horse fairs on 1 July and 21 Sept.

The ancient monastery was soon ruined by the Danes; was restored or rebuilt in 972, as a Benedictine abbey, by Bishop Ethelwold; had attached to it an hospital for the poor; gave its abbots a right to a seat in the upper house of parliament; and was given, at the dissolution, to the Russells. The abbey church was rebuilt in 1128, and became parochial in 1638; but the present church includes little more than the nave of the ancient one, and has additions of 1840-1.

The parish comprises 17,590 acres. Real property, £28,265. Pop., 2,219. Houses, 397. The property belongs to the Duke of Bedford. The living is a donative in the diocese of Ely. Value, £220. Patron, the Duke of Bedford. A temporary chapel of ease was recently built.

Source: The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales [Wilson, John M]. A. Fullarton & Co. N. d. c. [1870-72].