54-483: Wimblington is a village in the Isle of Ely , Cambridgeshire , England, with a population of 1700 as of the 2001 census, including Stonea and increasing to 2,211 at the 2011 Census. The place-name 'Wimblington' is first attested in a document of circa 975, where it appears as Wimblingetune . The name means 'the town or settlement of Winebald's people'. Formerly a hamlet of the large Doddington parish, in 1874 it became
108-467: A bishop in 1109, creating the Isle of Ely a county palatine under the bishop. An act of parliament in 1535/6 ended the palatine status of the Isle, with all justices of the peace to be appointed by letters patent issued under the great seal and warrants to be issued in the king's name. However, the bishop retained exclusive jurisdiction in civil and criminal matters, and was custos rotulorum . A chief bailiff
162-517: A character specifically created by the religious community at Ely, where her remains were supposed to have been taken after being stolen from Dereham and subsequently used as visual proof of the incorruptibility of a saint's body, a substitute for her sister Æthelthryth, whose body had to remain unexamined in her tomb. Manuscript F of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , which dates from about 1100, mentions Wihtburh's death when it records that her body
216-573: A fourth, Wihtburh – were canonised . Little is known of Anna's life or his reign, as few records have survived from this period. In 631 he may have been at Exning , close to the Devil's Dyke . In 645 Cenwalh of Wessex was driven from his kingdom by Penda and, due to Anna's influence, he was converted to Christianity while living as an exile at the East Anglian court. Upon his return from exile, Cenwalh re-established Christianity in his own kingdom and
270-477: A people living in the fens who may have been settled in the area around Ely. Æthelthryth, accompanied by her minister Owine, travelled from Ely to Northumbria when she married for the second time, to Ecgfrith . During his reign Anna endowed the monastery at Cnobheresburg with rich buildings and objects. The monastery was built in about 633 by Fursey after he arrived in East Anglia. In time, weary of attacks on
324-675: A period of 13 years. Æthelhere (who was also slain at the Battle of the Winwæd) and Æthelwold were succeeded by the descendants of Anna's youngest brother, Æthelric. Bede praised Anna's piety in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People , and modern historians have since regarded Anna as a devout king, but his reputation as a devoted Christian is mainly because he produced a son and four daughters who were all made into Anglo-Saxon saints . Five hundred years after his death, his tomb at Blythburgh
378-605: A separate parish and a new church, St Peter's, was opened on 15 May of that year. The church was designed by Thomas Henry Wyatt . The village is effectively divided into two; a hamlet known as Eastwood End is separated from the main village by the A141 road, which was previously divided by the St Ives extension of the Great Eastern Railway line between March and Chatteris. Wimblington railway station closed in 1967. Wimblington won
432-503: Is "tempting" to consider that Sæwara was married to Anna, and that Æthelmund might either be Anna's full name, or the name of an otherwise unknown East Anglian sub-king. The Liber Eliensis , on the other hand, names Hereswith , the sister of Hild, abbess of Whitby , as Anna's wife and the mother of Sæthryth, Seaxburh of Ely and Æthelthryth. However, the Liber Eliensis is regarded with caution by historians: Rosalind Love says that
486-455: Is also practised in the village. Wimblington has two sports pitches, of which Parkfield is the main one with space for two football pitches, a cricket pitch, basketball court also used for five a side football, and a pub. The other sports field in Wimblington is solely a football pitch but has a playground for children. The pub in the village is The Anchor. The village also had another two pubs,
540-401: Is quite uncertain. The Liber Eliensis says that Anna died in the nineteenth year of his reign, and since he died in the mid-650s this would indicate a date around 635. However, the Liber Eliensis is regarded by some historians as unreliable on this point, and Barbara Yorke suggests a possible date in the early 640s for Anna's accession, noting that it could not have been after 645 as Anna
594-497: Is recorded as giving refuge to Cenwalh of Wessex in that year. It is probable that Anna became king with the assistance of the northern Angles. Throughout his reign he was the victim of Mercian aggression under Penda, but he also seems to have challenged the rise of Penda's power. Due to their rivalry for control over the Middle Anglian people, Mercia and East Anglia probably became hereditary enemies and Penda repeatedly attacked
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#1732887857606648-613: The London Gazette the Duke is referred to as the Marquess of the Isle of Ely. Upon Frederick's death, the titles were inherited by his son Prince George. When he became George III in 1760, the titles " merged into the Crown ", and ceased to exist. Coprolites were mined in the area in the 1800s for their rich phosphate content. Anna of East Anglia Anna (or Onna ; killed 653 or 654)
702-685: The Cambridgeshire Times and Wisbech Standard "Best Kept Village" award nine times and in 1997 came second in the "National Village of the Year" competition. In 2002 and 2003 Wimblington & Stonea won the Fenland Section of the Calor Village of the Year competition. In 2003 Wimblington & Stonea also won the Cambridgeshire section, an achievement which was marked by the presentation of
756-542: The Thorney Rural District going to Huntingdon and Peterborough . In 1894 the county was divided into county districts, with the rural districts being Ely Rural District , Thorney Rural District , Whittlesey Rural District , Wisbech Rural District , North Witchford Rural District , and the urban districts were Ely , March , Whittlesey and Wisbech (the only municipal borough ). Whittlesey Rural district consisted of only one parish (Whittlesey Rural), which
810-458: The Anglo-Saxon period provide circumstantial evidence of its connections with East Anglian royalty and Christianity. Part of an 8th-century whalebone diptych or writing-tablet, used for liturgical purposes, has been found near the site. Saint Botolph began to build his monastery at Icanho, now conclusively identified as Iken , Suffolk, in the year that Anna was killed, possibly to commemorate
864-648: The East Angles from the mid-630s to 654. Anna arranged an important diplomatic marriage between his daughter Seaxburh and Eorcenberht of Kent , cementing an alliance between the two kingdoms. It was by means of marriages such as this that the kings of Kent became well-connected to other royal dynasties. Not all of Anna's daughters were married into other royal families. During the 640s Anna's daughter Æthelburg and his stepdaughter Sæthryth entered Faremoutiers Abbey in Gaul to live religious lives under abbess Fara . They were
918-489: The East Anglian royal family, Anna had already been king for a decade. In 631 Anna was probably at the Suffolk village of Exning , an important settlement with royal connections, and, according to the Liber Eliensis , the birthplace of his daughter Æthelthryth. By tradition, Æthelthryth is said to have been baptised at Exning in a pool known as St Mindred's Well. Exning was an important place strategically, as it stood just on
972-575: The East Anglian side of the Devil's Dyke, a major earthwork stretching between the Fen edge and the headwaters of the River Stour , built at an earlier date to defend the East Anglian region from attack. An early Anglo-Saxon cemetery discovered there suggests the existence of an important site nearby, possibly a royal estate or regio. During 632 or 633 Edwin of Northumbria , with his centre of Christian power north of
1026-844: The Fairhaven Trophy, which was awarded by Lord Fairhaven of Anglesey Abbey . In the same year, Wimblington & Stonea was one of 40 villages throughout England and Wales to be put forward for the Village of the Year final, where the community won the Youth Section for the East of England and the Home Counties. In 2005 the community raised funds for the refurbishment of the village's Italian marble War Memorial in St Peter's churchyard. The re-dedication ceremony took place just before Remembrance Sunday , which
1080-612: The Isle of Ely are held by Cambridgeshire Archives and Local Studies at the County Record Office in Ely. Chapelries are listed in italics. Parishes are listed by hundred . The title Marquess of the Isle of Ely was created in the Peerage of Great Britain for Prince Frederick . The title of Duke of Edinburgh was first created on 26 July 1726 by King George I , who bestowed it on his grandson Prince Frederick, who became Prince of Wales
1134-718: The Isle. Geoffrey was mortally wounded at Burwell in 1144. In 1216, during the First Barons' War , the Isle was unsuccessfully defended against the army of King John . Ely took part in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. During the English Civil War the Isle of Ely was held for the parliamentarians. Troops from the garrison at Wisbech Castle were used in the siege of Crowland and parts of the Fens were flooded to prevent Royalist forces entering Norfolk from Lincolnshire. The Horseshoe sluice on
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#17328878576061188-525: The River Humber , was overthrown. Edwin was slain and Northumbria was ravaged by Cadwallon ap Cadfan , supported by the Mercian king, Penda . The Mercians then turned on the kingdom of the East Angles and their king, Ecgric . At an unknown date (possibly in the early 640s), they routed the East Anglian army and Ecgric and his predecessor Sigeberht were both slain. D. P. Kirby has suggested that as Sigeberht
1242-583: The Wake in 1071. The area was taken by William the Conqueror only after a prolonged struggle. The story of Tom Hickathrift is sometimes set around this period. In 1139 civil war broke out between the forces of King Stephen and the Empress Matilda . Bishop Nigel of Ely , a supporter of Matilda, unsuccessfully tried to hold the Isle. In 1143 Geoffrey de Mandeville rebelled against Stephen, and made his base in
1296-542: The area around Faramoutiers through Anna's predecessor Sigeberht, who had spent several years as an exile in Gaul and had become a devout and learned Christian due to his experiences of monastic life. In 641 Oswald of Northumbria was slain in battle by Penda (probably at Oswestry in Shropshire). Due to his death, Northumbria was split into two. The northern part, Bernicia , accepted Oswald's brother Oswiu as their new king, but
1350-501: The crown. Following the 1837 Act the Isle maintained separate Quarter Sessions , and formed its own constabulary. Under the Local Government Bill of 1888, which proposed the introduction of elected county councils , the Isle was to form part of Cambridgeshire. Following the intervention of the local member of parliament , Charles Selwyn , the Isle of Ely was constituted a separate administrative county in 1889. The county
1404-510: The daughter of King Anna of the East Angles , with the Isle of Ely. She afterwards founded a monastery at Ely, which was destroyed by Viking raiders in 870, but was rebuilt and became a famous Abbey and Shrine . The area's natural defences led to it playing a role in the military history of England. Following the Norman Conquest , the Isle became a refuge for Anglo-Saxon forces under Earl Morcar , Bishop Aethelwine of Durham and Hereward
1458-559: The end of the century. From 1109 until 1837, the Isle was under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Ely who appointed a Chief Justice of Ely and exercised temporal powers within the Liberty of Ely. This temporal jurisdiction originated in a charter granted by King Edgar in 970, and confirmed by Edward the Confessor and Henry I to the abbot of Ely. The latter monarch established Ely as the seat of
1512-517: The first royal Anglo-Saxons to become nuns, making religious seclusion "an acceptable and desirable vocation for ex-queens and royal princesses", according to Barbara Yorke. D. P. Kirby uses the presence of East Anglian princesses living under the veil in Gaul as evidence of the Frankish orientation of Anna's kingdom at this time, continued since the reign of his predecessor Rædwald. The Wuffingas dynasty may have been connected with monastic foundations in
1566-455: The following year. The subsidiary titles of the dukedom were Baron of Snowdon, in the County of Caernarvon; Viscount of Launceston, in the County of Cornwall; Earl of Eltham, in the County of Kent; and Marquess of the Isle of Ely. The marquessate was apparently erroneously gazetted as Marquess of the Isle of Wight although Marquess of the Isle of Ely was the intended title. In later editions of
1620-538: The king. Anna was succeeded in turn by his two brothers Æthelhere and Æthelwold , who may have ruled jointly. It is possible that Æthelhere was set up as a puppet ruler by Penda or was his ally, as he was one of the 30 duces that accompanied Penda when he attacked Oswiu of Northumbria at an unidentified location called the Winwæd in 655 or 656. Penda himself was killed at the Winwæd, after having steadily increased his power over
1674-529: The kingdom was attacked again by Penda and at the Battle of Bulcamp the East Anglian army, led by Anna, was defeated by the Mercians, and both Anna and his son Jurmin were killed. Anna was succeeded by his brother, Æthelhere . Botolph 's monastery at Iken may have been built in commemoration of the king. After Anna's reign, East Anglia seems to have been eclipsed by its more powerful neighbour, Mercia . The kingdom of East Anglia ( Old English : Ēast Engla Rīce )
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1728-555: The kingdom, Fursey left East Anglia for good, leaving the monastery to his brother Foillan . When in 651 Penda attacked the monastery, Anna and his men arrived and held the Mercians back. This gave Foillan and his monks enough time to escape with their books and valuables, but Penda defeated Anna and drove him into exile, possibly to the kingdom of Merewalh of the Magonsætan , in western Shropshire . He returned to East Anglia in about 654. Soon after 653, when Penda made his son Peada
1782-419: The mediaeval writers who interpreted Bede's information about Hereswith made an "erroneous assumption" regarding her connection with Anna and his family. Bede is clear that Hereswith had left East Anglia as a widow before Hild visited the kingdom, at which time Anna was very much alive. Historians now believe that Hereswith was Anna's sister-in-law, and some have thought that around the time that she married into
1836-428: The nunnery of Faremoutiers. Anna's son, Jurmin, was of warrior age in 653 when he was killed in battle. By tradition, Anna is said to have had a fourth daughter, Wihtburh , an abbess at Dereham (or possibly West Dereham ), where there was a royal double monastery . She may never have existed: Bede fails to mention her and she first appears in a calendar in the late 10th century Bosworth Psalter . She may have been
1890-549: The oldest being the Carpenters Arms which was built in the early 17th century. Isle of Ely The Isle of Ely ( / ˈ iː l i / ) is a historic region around the city of Ely in Cambridgeshire , England . Between 1889 and 1965, it formed an administrative county . Its name has been said to mean "island of eels ", a reference to the creatures that were often caught in the local rivers for food. This etymology
1944-500: The people of Wessex then remained firmly Christian. Around 651 the land around Ely was absorbed into East Anglia, following the marriage of Anna's daughter Æthelthryth. Anna richly endowed the coastal monastery at Cnobheresburg . In 651, in the aftermath of an attack by Penda on Cnobheresburg, Anna was forced to flee into exile, perhaps to the western kingdom of the Magonsæte . He returned to East Anglia in about 653, but soon afterwards
1998-697: The result of Viking raids and settlement. The main primary sources for information about Anna's life and reign are the Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum ( Ecclesiastical History of the English People ), completed in Northumbria by Bede in 731, and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , initially written in the ninth century, which mentions Anna's death. The mediaeval work known as the Liber Eliensis , written in Ely in
2052-403: The river at Wisbech and the nearby castle and town defences were upgraded and cannon brought from Ely. The Fens were drained beginning in 1626 using a network of canals designed by Dutch experts. Many Fenlanders were opposed to the draining as it deprived some of them of their traditional livelihood. Acts of vandalism on dykes, ditches, and sluices were common, but the draining was complete by
2106-512: The ruler of the Middle Angles (but still continued to rule his own country), the Mercian assault on East Anglia was repeated. The opposing armies of Penda and Anna met at Bulcamp, near Blythburgh in Suffolk. The East Anglians were defeated and many were slain, including King Anna and his son Jurmin . Anna's death is mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in the entry for 653 or 654, "Her Anna cining werð ofslagen ..." – 'Here Anna
2160-411: The southern Deirans refused to accept him and were ruled instead by a king of the original Deiran house, Oswine . Soon afterwards Cenwalh of Wessex , the brother of Oswald's widow and himself married to Penda's sister, renounced his wife. In 645, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , Penda drove Cenwalh from his kingdom and into exile. During the following year, while a refugee at Anna's court, he
2214-453: The twelfth century, is a source of information about Anna's daughters, and also describes his death and burial. Anna was the son of Eni, a member of the ruling Wuffingas family, and nephew of Rædwald , king of the East Angles from 600 to 625. East Anglia was an early and long-lived Anglo-Saxon kingdom in which a duality of a northern and a southern part existed, corresponding with the modern English counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. Anna
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2268-559: Was king of East Anglia from the early 640s until his death. He was a member of the Wuffingas family, the ruling dynasty of the East Angles, and one of the three sons of Eni who ruled the kingdom of East Anglia , succeeding some time after Ecgric was killed in battle by Penda of Mercia . Anna was praised by Bede for his devotion to Christianity and was renowned for the saintliness of his family: his son Jurmin and all his daughters – Seaxburh , Æthelthryth , Æthelburh and possibly
2322-403: Was (according to the Liber Eliensis ) still "venerated by the pious devotion of faithful people". Anna's children were all canonised. The eldest, Seaxburh, was the wife of Eorcenberht of Kent. She ruled Kent from 664 until her son Ecgberht came of age. Æthelthryth , according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , founded the monastery at Ely in 673. Another daughter, Æthelburh , spent her life at
2376-554: Was a small independent Anglo-Saxon kingdom that comprised what are now the English counties of Norfolk and Suffolk and perhaps the eastern part of the Cambridgeshire Fens . In contrast to the kingdoms of Northumbria , Mercia and Wessex , little reliable evidence about the kingdom of the East Angles has survived, because of the destruction of its monasteries and the disappearance of the two East Anglian sees that occurred as
2430-453: Was added to Whittlesey urban district, in 1926. The Isle of Ely parliamentary constituency was created as a two-member seat in the First and Second Protectorate Parliaments from 1654 to 1659. The constituency was re-created with a single seat in 1918. In the boundary changes of 1983 it was replaced by the new constituency of North East Cambridgeshire . Original historical documents relating to
2484-524: Was alive when the Irish monk Fursey left for Gaul and found Erchinoald , (which happened after Erchinoald became Mayor of the Neustrian palace in 641), Sigeberht was probably killed around 640 or 641. Penda's victory marked the end of the line of kings of the East Angles who were directly descended from Rædwald. Some time after Penda's victory, Anna became king of the East Angles, though the date of his accession
2538-439: Was appointed for life by the bishop, and performed the functions of high sheriff within the liberty, who also headed the government of the city of Ely. In July 1643 Oliver Cromwell was made governor of the isle. The Liberty of Ely Act 1837 ( 7 Will. 4 & 1 Vict. c. 53) ended the bishop's secular powers in the Isle. The area was declared a division of Cambridgeshire , with the right to appoint justices revested in
2592-512: Was converted to Christianity, returning in 648 to rule Wessex as a Christian king. Anna probably provided military support for Cenwalh's return to his throne. Anna's hold on the western limits of his kingdom, which bordered on the Fen lands that surrounded the Isle of Ely, was strengthened by the marriage in 651 (or slightly later) of his daughter Æthelthryth to Tondberht, a prince of the South Gyrwe ,
2646-554: Was first recorded by the Venerable Bede . Until the 17th century, the area was an island surrounded by a large area of fenland , a type of swamp. It was coveted as an area easy to defend, and was controlled in the very early medieval period by the Gyrwas , an Anglo-Saxon tribe. Upon their marriage in 652, Tondbert, a prince of the Gyrwas, presented Æthelthryth (who became St. Æthelthryth),
2700-631: Was killed' – but no other details of the battle in which he died are given. Blythburgh, a mile from Bulcamp and situated near the fordable headwaters of the Blyth estuary, was afterwards believed to be the location of the tombs of Anna and Jurmin. It is a candidate for a monastic site or a royal regio (estate). According to Peter Warner, the Latin derivation of part of the nearby place-name 'Bulcamp' indicates its ancient origins, and mediaeval sources which claim continuous Christian worship at Blythburgh throughout
2754-463: Was married; Bede refers to the saint Sæthryth as "daughter of the wife of Anna, king of the East Angles". In Abbott Folcard 's Life of St Botolph , written in the 11th century, Botolph is described as having been at one time the chaplain to the sisters of a king, Æthelmund, whose mother was named Sæwara. Folcard names two of Sæwara's kinsmen as Æthelhere and Æthelwold. Since these are the names of two of Anna's brothers, Steven Plunkett suggests that it
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#17328878576062808-454: Was reunited with his family. Cox was photographed at the War Memorial and pointing at his name along with his father and brother, the photo was released in the local newspapers. Cox took his own life in the 1950s and it was discovered he had been living under another name, Ernest Durham. Wimblington has a football club which consists of three teams. The village has a cricket team and archery
2862-597: Was small in terms of both area and population, and its abolition was proposed by the Local Government Boundary Commission in 1947. The report of the LGBC was not acted upon, and the administrative county survived until 1965. Following the recommendations of the Local Government Commission for England , on 1 April 1965 the bulk of the area was merged to form Cambridgeshire and Isle of Ely , with
2916-424: Was the target date in 2005, the year marking the 60th Anniversary of the ending of World War II . As the memorial was refurbished it was agreed within the village and by various organisations, after much consultation the name of Percy Bush Cox should be removed from the War Memorial. Cox was "missing in action believed dead" following World War I , however it was discovered that Percy was still alive in 1950 when he
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