A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely

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This volume covers the two hundreds of Armingford and Thriplow in south-west Cam-bridgeshire. They comprise 23 ancient parishes, lying between the Gogmagog Hills south-east of Cambridge, where an Iron Age hill fort partly survives, and the clay-covered West Cambridge-shire upland. To the north-west they are largely bounded by the Cam or Rhee, to the south by heathlend along the Icknield Way. The land has long been used mainly for arable farming. Some of the villages, which are mostly nucleated, may stand near the sites of Roman or earlier settlement. Those in the far west had some dependent hamlets, mostly vanished long ago. In that area several villages, after the early inclosureof their poor, heavy soils for pasturage, shrank greatly or, as at Clopton and Shingay, became. entirely deserted. Elsewhere open fields survived until the early 19th century. Later in that century coprolites were widely dug; in the 20th com-mercial fruit growing was introduced; the chalk has been dug to make cement and whiting; and some of the larger villages, such as Melbourn, have attracted light industry. During the Second World War much level ground was taken over for airfields. The churches of the ar

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