County town: Huntingdon
Huntingdonshire was established as a shire by the early 10th century, a small county centred on Huntingdon at the crossing of the Ouse. It incorporated territory that had been part of the Danelaw.
Huntingdonshire was one of England's smallest counties, a compact area of river meadows and fen-edge farmland along the Great Ouse. Ramsey Abbey, founded in 969, was one of the wealthiest and most influential monasteries in medieval England, dominating the county's ecclesiastical and economic life. Oliver Cromwell was born in Huntingdon in 1599, giving the county a pivotal role in the 17th-century history of Britain. The county's Great North Road connections made Huntingdon and Godmanchester important staging posts. Much of the eastern county was occupied by the Fens before the great drainage schemes of the 17th century transformed the landscape.
Huntingdonshire was surveyed in the Domesday Book of 1086, William the Conqueror's great census of England. The survey recorded 98 settlements in the county, with details of their lords, landholders, population, and resources.
Browse 98 Domesday settlements in HuntingdonshireEngland's 39 historic counties, established between the 9th and 12th centuries, are the framework through which English local history, legal records, and landscape have been organised for a thousand years. Most survive today as ceremonial counties, their boundaries deeply embedded in place identity.
This page introduces the historic county of Huntingdonshire. A full Aubrey report for a location within it pulls together everything the record actually holds about that ground, from the geology beneath it to the last coin dropped in a field:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
Read in-depth research reports on notable historical places across the UK — explore →
Huntingdonshire contains 91 scheduled monuments — sites of national importance protected under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979.
Browse scheduled monuments in EnglandAn Aubrey report for a specific location in Huntingdonshire draws on historical maps, archaeological records, Domesday data and landscape history to tell the full story of any site in the county.