TOPOGRAPHY 



THE SOKE OF PETERBOROUGH 



SAINTON 



BARNACK 



BOROUGH 



CASTOR 



ETTON 



EYE 



CLINTON 



FEN 



CONTAINING THE 



CITY OF PETERBOROUGH, 



AND THE PARISHES OF 



HELPSTON 



MARHOLM 



MAXEY 



NEWBOROUGH 



NORTHBOROUGH 



PASTON 



PEAKIRK 



ST. MARTIN'S STAMFORD 



BARON 

 THORNHAUGH 

 UFFORD 

 WANSFORD 

 WITTERING ' 



THE boundaries of the Liberty of Peterborough have changed very 

 Httle, except on the eastern side, since the earliest times of which 

 there is record. No authentic document before the Conquest 

 gives definite boundaries. A charter of Edgar, which may be 

 genuine, confirms to the abbey ' the vill of Peterborough with the villages 

 adjacent, and the town of Oundle, with all that which is thereto adjacent, 

 called the Eight Hundreds.'^ The land 'between the waters of the Nene and 

 the waters of the Welland as they meet at Crowland,' and on the west to 

 ' the great road ' from Wansford, to Stamford,' was what Peterborough always 

 claimed, and those boundaries appear in a charter of John, dated 121 5.* In 

 Domesday Book the soke of Peterborough is called ' Optongrene ' ^ hundred 

 or wapentake ; but the hundred headings are not sufficiently numerous to 

 indicate what places were then part of it. The only places definitely included 

 in ' Optongrene ' hundred which are not in the present soke are part of 



' This list is taiien from the Population Return of 1831. The soke since 1888 has been an administrative 

 county, and includes, as well as the places mentioned in the text, Fletton and Woodstone in Hunts, which 

 are part of the municipal borough of Peterborough. Stamford Baron has been divided into the parishes of 

 St. Martin's Stamford Baron and St. Martin's Without ; the former is for civil purposes in the administrative 

 county of Lincoln. 



' J. S. Ckron. (Rolls Ser.),i, 220. There are many royal Anglo-Saxon charters and confirmations to Peter- 

 borough Abbey. The most important are those of Wulfhere, dated 664, and Edgar, dated about 972. 

 There are several versions of both. The charter of Wulfhere is unquestionably a forgery, and in its most 

 extended form (Birch, Cart. Sax. No. 22) cannot be even a representation of the truth. The nucleus of 

 Edgar's charter, which has been interpolated into the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, is considered by some authorities 

 to be genuine, and in any case it does not claim more than Peterborough m.ay well have had at that time 

 (Arch. Journ. xviii, 193). The author of the forged Crowland history, known as the Chronicle of Ingulph, 

 also frequently refers to this part of Northamptonshire. No statement from that source can be received with 

 credit without further corroboration {Arch. Journ. xix, I 27). 



' The present course of the Great North Road from Wansford to Stamford would just exclude the 

 villages of Wittering and Thornhaugh, which have always been part of the soke. Possibly the course of the 

 road may have slightly deviated. 



' Printed in Gunton, App. p. I 54. 



' In the earlier Northants Geld Roll it is called the 'double hundred ofUptune.' F. C.H. Korthants. 

 i, 296. 



421 



