page_title: Huntingdonshire
section_title: Status
hierarchical_section_title: Huntingdonshire / History / Status
caption_attribution_description: Huntingdonshire
context_page_description: Huntingdonshire is a non-metropolitan district of Cambridgeshire, as well as a historic county of England. Its council is based in Huntingdon. Other towns in the district are St Ives, Godmanchester, St Neots and Ramsey. The population was 169,508 at the 2011 Census. Henry II, on his accession in 1154, declared all of Huntingdonshire a royal forest, but its favourable arable soil, with loam, light clay and gravel, hence good drainage, meant it was largely farmland by the 18th century.
context_section_description: In 1889, under the Local Government Act 1888 Huntingdonshire became an administrative county, with the new County Council taking over administrative functions from the Quarter Sessions. The area in the north of the county forming part of the municipal borough of Peterborough became instead part of the Soke of Peterborough, an administrative county in Northamptonshire.
  In 1965, under a recommendation of the Local Government Commission for England, Huntingdonshire was merged with the Soke of Peterborough to form Huntingdon and Peterborough. The Lieutenancy county was also merged. At the same time, St Neots was expanded westwards over the river into Eaton Ford and Eaton Socon in Bedfordshire.
  In 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, Huntingdon and Peterborough merged with Cambridgeshire and Isle of Ely to form the new non-metropolitan county of Cambridgeshire. A Huntingdon district was created based closely on the former administrative county borders, with the exclusion of the Old Fletton urban district, which became part of the Peterborough district, as did the part of Norman Cross Rural District in Peterborough New Town.
  The district was renamed Huntingdonshire on 1 October 1984, by a resolution of the district council.
  Original historical documents relating to Huntingdonshire are held by Cambridgeshire Archives and Local Studies at the County Record Office in Huntingdon.
caption: Map of Huntingdonshire, 1824
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