page_title: Whittlesey
section_title: History and architecture
hierarchical_section_title: Whittlesey / History and architecture
caption_attribution_description: English: St. Marys spire
context_page_description: Whittlesey is an English town 6 miles east of Peterborough in the Fenland district of Cambridgeshire. Its population of 16,058 at the 2011 Census includes the neighbouring villages of Coates, Eastrea, Pondersbridge and Turves.
context_section_description: Whittlesey appears in the Cartularium Saxonicum (AD 973) as 'Witlesig', in the 1086 Domesday Book as 'Witesie', and in the Inquisitio Eliensis. The meaning is "Wit(t)el's island", deriving from either Witil, "the name of a moneyer", or a diminutive of Witta, a personal name; + "eg", meaning "'island', also used of a piece of firm land in a fen."
  Before the fens were drained, Whittlesey was an island of dry ground surrounded by them. Excavations of nearby Flag Fen indicate thriving local settlements as far back as 1000 BC. At Must Farm quarry, a Bronze Age settlement is described as "Britain's Pompeii" due to its relatively good condition. In 2016 it was being excavated by the University of Cambridge's Cambridge Archaeological Unit. At Must Farm at least five homes of 3,000 years in age have been found, along with Britain's most complete prehistoric wooden wheel, dating back to the late Bronze Age.
  Whittlesey was linked to Peterborough in the west and March in the east by the Roman Fen Causeway, probably built in the 1st century AD. Roman artefacts have been recovered at nearby Eldernell, and a Roman skeleton was discovered in the nearby village of Eastrea during construction of its village hall in 2010.
  The town's two parishes of St Mary's and St Andrew's belonged to the abbeys in Thorney and Ely respectively until the Dissolution of the Monasteries about 1540. The two parishes were combined for administrative purposes by the Whittlesey Improvement Act of 1849. Despite the proximity of Peterborough, Whittlesey is in the Diocese of Ely.
  Until it was drained in 1851, nearby Whittlesey Mere was a substantial lake surrounded by marsh. According to the traveller Celia Fiennes, who saw it in 1697, the mere was "3-mile broad and six-mile long. In the midst is a little island where a great store of Wildfowle breed.... The ground is all wett and marshy but there are severall little Channells runs into it which by boats people go up to this place; when you enter the mouth of the Mer it looks formidable and its often very dangerous by reason of sudden winds that will rise like Hurricanes...." The town is still accessible by water, being connected to the River Nene by King's Dyke, which forms part of the Nene/Ouse Navigation. Moorings can be found at Ashline Lock, alongside the Manor Leisure Centre's cricket and football pitches.
  Whittlesey was significant for its brickyards, around which the former hamlet of King's Dyke was based for much of the 20th century, although only one now remains, following the closure of the Saxon brickworks in 2011.
  The local clay soil was also used to make cob boundary walls during a period in which there was a brick tax. Some examples of these roofed walls still stand today and are claimed to be unique in Fenland. Clay walls predate the introduction of brick tax in other parts of the country, and some were thatched.
  Whittlesey had a large number of public houses. In 1797, a local farmer noted in his diary, "They like drinking better than fighting in Whittlesea."
  Whittlesey was an important trade route in the late Bronze Age (about 1100–800 BC). Evidence for this was found at the archaeological site of Must Farm, where log boats, roundhouses, bowls with food in them, and the most complete wooden wheel were housed.
caption: The spire of St Mary's church viewed from the west
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