place

Old Hurst

Civil parishes in CambridgeshireHuntingdonshireUse British English from July 2016Villages in Cambridgeshire
St Peter's Church, Old Hurst geograph.org.uk 3861346
St Peter's Church, Old Hurst geograph.org.uk 3861346

Old Hurst is a village and civil parish in Cambridgeshire, England, approximately 5 miles (8 km) north-east of Huntingdon. It is situated within Huntingdonshire which is a non-metropolitan district of Cambridgeshire as well as being a historic county of England.The small Parish Church of St Peter's dates from the 13th century and is a Grade II* listed building.At one time, at the most prominent point along the road between Old Hurst and St Ives, there could be found a low chair-shaped hunk of stone called the Hursting Stone, or the Abbot's Chair. This glacial relic served many functions throughout the centuries, having been sculpted into a curious chair-shaped mass: folklore has it that it in the Middle Ages it formed the base of a plinth that held an almighty stone cross upright. Here, sentences were passed in open-air trials. Later it earned the name 'Abbot's Chair' from the belief that monks would sit in it and rest while travelling. This antiquity now rests against a wall just outside the Norris Museum in St Ives and, according to the writer Daniel Codd, there is a belief that it is haunted. There is also a belief that if the stone should ever sink beneath the earth then the streets of Bluntisham would run red with blood.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Old Hurst (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Old Hurst
Old Hurst Road, Huntingdonshire Old Hurst

Geographical coordinates (GPS) Address Nearby Places
placeShow on map

Wikipedia: Old HurstContinue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 52.37 ° E -0.09 °
placeShow on map

Address

Old Hurst Road

Old Hurst Road
PE28 3BQ Huntingdonshire, Old Hurst
England, United Kingdom
mapOpen on Google Maps

St Peter's Church, Old Hurst geograph.org.uk 3861346
St Peter's Church, Old Hurst geograph.org.uk 3861346
Share experience

Nearby Places

Hurstingstone (hundred)
Hurstingstone (hundred)

Hurstingstone was a hundred of Huntingdonshire, England that was mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086. According to Victoria County History, the derivation of the name of Hurstingstone is not clear; one possibility is that Hurstingstone comes from the name of the tribe of Hirstina (or Hyrstingas) who had settled in the area. There was a stone called the Hursting Stone on Hustingstone Hill which is the highest point on the road between St Ives and Old Hurst; it was here that the area's moot was held until it was moved to Broughton in the 14th century. There was a gallows on Hurstingstone Hill. The Hundred was given by Henry I to the abbot and convent of Ramsey c. 1155 in whose possession it remained until the dissolution of the monastery in 1539. By 1654 the hundred was sold to Edward Montagu and has been in the family of the Earls of Sandwich ever since.The Hursting Stone resembles the shape of a chair and it is also known as the Abbot's Chair. It is possible that the Hursting Stone was used as a plinth for a stone cross around the 12th century when such crosses were commonly erected at boundaries. The stone has been moved and is now at the Norris Museum in St Ives. In 1870–72, Hurstingstone was described like this: HURSTINGSTONE, a hundred in Huntingdon; named from an ancient stone near Old Hurst; and containing Old Hurst parish, twenty-two other parishes, and part of another. Acres, 72, 670. Pop. in 1851, 20, 946; in 1861, 19, 961. Houses, 4, 323. Hurstingstone was one of four Hundreds of Huntingdonshire and covered the eastern region of the county. The other Hundreds were Norman Cross, Leightonstone and Toseland.In the Domesday Book of 1086 there were eighteen places listed in the Hundred of Hurstingstone. They were: Abbotts Ripton, Bluntisham, Botuluesbrige, Broughton, Colne, Great Stukeley, Hartford, Holywell, Houghton, Huntingdon, Little Stukeley, Ramsey, St Ives, Somersham, Upwood, Warboys, Wistow and Wyton.The area covered by the hundred of Hurstingstone was little changed through to 1932 although a number of new parishes had been formed and Huntingdon was by then a separate administrative area. The parishes in Hurstingstone in 1932 were: Abbotts Ripton, Bluntisham, Broughton, Bury, Colne, Earith, Great Raveley, Great Stukeley, Hartford, Holywell with Needingworth, Houghton, Kings Ripton, Little Raveley, Little Stukeley, Old Hurst, Pidley, Ramsey, St Ives, Sapley, Somersham, Upwood, Warboys, Wistow, Woodhurst and Wyton.