Acknowledgements

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The publication of the tenth and final volume of the Victoria County History of Cambridgeshire marks the completion of the first V.C.H. county series since Warwickshire was completed in the late 1960s. This work has only been made possible by the goodwill of institutions and individuals in Cambridgeshire who contributed to an Appeal made in the 1980s, listed in the Editorial Note to V.C.H. Cambridgeshire Volume IX (1989).

Thanks are also due to all those who have assisted in preparing the volume by permitting access to archives and buildings, and by providing information in response to inquiries. Without the goodwill and willingness of many people to discuss the history of their villages, streets, farms and homes, it would not have been possible to provide this type of detailed research on localities. It is to be hoped that their input into this volume, acknowledged individually in each parish history, will encourage further research by professional and leisure historians on the fascinating and important histories of each of these places. Completing V.C.H. Cambridgehire has also only been made possible because of the extensive help which has been provided in Cambridgeshire by successive Librarians of the University Library, Dr. F. W. Ratcliffe and Mr. P. Fox, by Dr. P. Zutshi, the Keeper of Manuscripts there, and by Mr. G. Waller and the other staff of that Library's Manuscripts and Map Rooms; by Mr. J. M. P. Farrar, the former Archivist, and his successor, Dr. E. Stazicker, also Head of Heritage, and by Dr. P. C. Saunders, Mrs. L. S. Akeroyd, Miss S. Neville, and other staff of the Cambridgeshire County Record Office; by the Ely Diocesan Archivists, Mrs. A. E. B. Owen and Mr. P. Meadows; and by Mr. M. J. Petty and Mr. C. Jakes and their colleagues at the Cambridgeshire Collection in the Cambridge City Library; the staff of the Norfolk Record Office, and of the West Suffolk branch of the Suffolk Record Office; the Keeper and staff of Special Collections at the University of Kansas; and in London to the staff in charge of the records of the Church Commissioners and of the Charity Commission. Grateful thanks are owed to all of them for their continued efficiency, helpfulness, and patience. The Keepers of the Cambridge University Archives, and the archivists, librarians, and bursars of Christ's, Corpus Christi, Gonville and Caius, Jesus, King's, Magdalene, St. John's, and Trinity Colleges, Peterhouse, and Trinity Hall, Cambridge; Merton College, Oxford; Westminster Abbey; St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London; and of His Grace the late Duke of Rutland, are all thanked for their assistance with access to archives and for answering queries. English Heritage provided much help in supplying illustrations for this volume, and the staff of the Geography Drawing Office at University College, London responded magnificently to requests to depict historical development. Thanks are also offered to Christopher Currie, Christopher Elrington, and Alan Thacker for their editorial comments, and to Christopher Elrington for advice on the editing of this volume.

The editor would like to say a word about his colleague, Dr. A. P. M. Wright, who has been the mainstay of V.C.H. Cambridgeshire over the last quarter of a century. He has also worked on all four previous topographical volumes concerned with the history of Southern Cambridgeshire, writing with verve and authority upon every aspect of the county's history in over fifty parish histories, as well as in general articles ranging from horse-racing to hundreds. He has enriched appreciation and understanding of landscapes and communities in Cambridgeshire for the benefit of present and future generations. The staff of the Cambridgeshire Collection and the Cambridgeshire County Record Office and the present writer would like to take this opportunity to offer their appreciation to Dr. Wright for his contribution to the V.C.H. Cambridgeshire series.

Historians do not only depend upon academic and financial assistance. Thanks are also offered to Ian, Lillian, Graham, and Robinia Wareham for their judgement in knowing when to remind the editor of the pleasures of history, and when to distract him from what might otherwise have resembled Saint Guthlac's anchoritic journey through the Cambridgeshire fenlands. Finally the present writer would like to thank Oi Yu Li for her support and friendship during the completion of this volume.

A.F.W. August 2002

The General Editor would like to thank Dr A.P.M. Wright, joint editor of this volume, for his dedicated work for V.C.H. Cambridgeshire during the 35 years of his full-time career with the Victoria History.

A.J.F. August 2002