Holme, Cambridgeshire
Encyclopedia
Holme is a village
in Huntingdonshire
(now part of Cambridgeshire
), England
, near Conington
and Yaxley
, and south of Peterborough
.
Holme is surrounded by fields
, forests and fen
s. Over the last few years Holme has grown substantially with around 36 new houses being built.
Before drainage, the fens contained many shallow lakes, of which Whittlesey Mere
was one of the largest. The River Nene
originally flowed through this mere, then south to Ugg Mere, before turning east towards the Ouse
. By 1851, silting and peat expansion had reduced Whittlesey Mere to about 400 ha and only a metre deep. In that year the mere disappeared, when new drains carried waters to a pumping station and up into Bevill's Leam
. The drainage turned both the mere and the Holme Fen into useable farmland, but subsidence
followed.
In anticipation of the ground subsidence, the landowner William Wells
had an oak pile driven through the peat and firmly embedded in the underlying clay; he then cut the top level with the ground in 1851 and used it to monitor the peat subsidence. A few years later, the oak post was replaced by a cast iron column (reputedly from The Crystal Palace
building at The Great Exhibition
of 1851), that was similarly founded on timber piles driven into the stable clay, with its top at the same level as the original post. This is the Holme Post that survives today. As it was progressively exposed it became unstable, and steel guys were added in 1957, when a second iron post was also installed 6 m to the northeast. The post now rises 4 m above the ground, and provides an impressive record of the ground subsidence; both posts are standing today.
The site is a 266 hectares (657.3 acre) National Nature Reserve
(NNR) situated at the westernmost end of the East Anglian fens at the south-western edge of the former Whittlesey Mere. The Fen occupies a crescent-shaped site approximately 2.5 km long by 1.5 km wide and has been designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest
(SSSI) and Geological Conservation Review
Site (GCR). It is home to a variety of birds, including the Eurasian siskin
, Nightingale
and Lesser redpoll
, and around 450 species of fungi.
Holme Fen is the largest Silver birch woodland in lowland Britain. It contains approximately 5 hectares of rare acid grassland and heath
and a hectare of remnant raised bog, an echo of the habitat that would have dominated the area centuries ago. This is the most south-easterly bog of its type in Britain.
Holme approximately marks the south-western limit of Stage 2 of the Great Fen Project. The reserve is open to the public throughout the year.
During World War II, the Hall was used by U.S. Office of Strategic Services
for packing airborne containers to be parachuted into occupied Europe. The OSS called this effort to supply anti-Nazi resistance groups Operation Carpetbagger
.
However most of Holme's population work outside the village in Huntingdon
or Peterborough
.
Village
A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...
in Huntingdonshire
Huntingdonshire
Huntingdonshire is a local government district of Cambridgeshire, covering the area around Huntingdon. Traditionally it is a county in its own right...
(now part of Cambridgeshire
Cambridgeshire
Cambridgeshire is a county in England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the northeast, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire to the west...
), England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, near Conington
Conington, Huntingdonshire
Conington is a small village in the Huntingdonshire district of Cambridgeshire. It lies within earshot of Ermine Street, now called the Great North Road, about south of Peterborough and north of Sawtry....
and Yaxley
Yaxley, Cambridgeshire
Yaxley is a village in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. Historically in Huntingdonshire, it is due south of the city of Peterborough, and is skirted to its west by the A15 road...
, and south of Peterborough
Peterborough
Peterborough is a cathedral city and unitary authority area in the East of England, with an estimated population of in June 2007. For ceremonial purposes it is in the county of Cambridgeshire. Situated north of London, the city stands on the River Nene which flows into the North Sea...
.
The village
Holme is a small village and there are few services for its population of around 700, although it has more facilities than many other villages in Cambridgeshire. The services the village does offer are:- A pubPublic houseA public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment fundamental to the culture of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are approximately 53,500 public houses in the United Kingdom. This number has been declining every year, so that nearly half of the smaller...
called the Admiral Wells - A village shop which is also a post officePost officeA post office is a facility forming part of a postal system for the posting, receipt, sorting, handling, transmission or delivery of mail.Post offices offer mail-related services such as post office boxes, postage and packaging supplies...
- A village hallVillage hallIn the United States, a village hall is the seat of government for villages. It functions much as a city hall does within cities.In the United Kingdom, a village hall is usually a building within a village which contains at least one large room, usually owned by and run for the benefit of the local...
, - A nature reserveNature reserveA nature reserve is a protected area of importance for wildlife, flora, fauna or features of geological or other special interest, which is reserved and managed for conservation and to provide special opportunities for study or research...
- Large area of forestForestA forest, also referred to as a wood or the woods, is an area with a high density of trees. As with cities, depending where you are in the world, what is considered a forest may vary significantly in size and have various classification according to how and what of the forest is composed...
s - A large village greenVillage greenA village green is a common open area which is a part of a settlement. Traditionally, such an area was often common grass land at the centre of a small agricultural settlement, used for grazing and sometimes for community events...
- A primary school
- The parish church, dedicated to St Giles, was rebuilt in 1862 by Edward Browning.
Holme is surrounded by fields
Field (agriculture)
In agriculture, the word field refers generally to an area of land enclosed or otherwise and used for agricultural purposes such as:* Cultivating crops* Usage as a paddock or, generally, an enclosure of livestock...
, forests and fen
Fen
A fen is a type of wetland fed by mineral-rich surface water or groundwater. Fens are characterised by their water chemistry, which is neutral or alkaline, with relatively high dissolved mineral levels but few other plant nutrients...
s. Over the last few years Holme has grown substantially with around 36 new houses being built.
Holme Fen
Holme Fen, specifically Holme Posts, is believed to be the lowest land point in Great Britain at 2.75 metres (9 ft) below sea level.Before drainage, the fens contained many shallow lakes, of which Whittlesey Mere
Whittlesey Mere
Whittlesey Mere was an area of open water in the Fenland area of the county of Huntingdonshire , England.It occupied the land south-east of Yaxley Fen, south of Farcet Fen and north of Holme Fen. The town of Whittlesey lay to the north-east.Whittlesey Mere was the last of the 'great meres' to be...
was one of the largest. The River Nene
River Nene
The River Nene is a river in the east of England that rises from three sources in the county of Northamptonshire. The tidal river forms the border between Cambridgeshire and Norfolk for about . It is the tenth longest river in the United Kingdom, and is navigable for from Northampton to The...
originally flowed through this mere, then south to Ugg Mere, before turning east towards the Ouse
River Great Ouse
The Great Ouse is a river in the east of England. At long, it is the fourth-longest river in the United Kingdom. The river has been important for navigation, and for draining the low-lying region through which it flows. Its course has been modified several times, with the first recorded being in...
. By 1851, silting and peat expansion had reduced Whittlesey Mere to about 400 ha and only a metre deep. In that year the mere disappeared, when new drains carried waters to a pumping station and up into Bevill's Leam
Bevill's Leam
Bevill's Leam is a village in Cambridgeshire, England....
. The drainage turned both the mere and the Holme Fen into useable farmland, but subsidence
Subsidence
Subsidence is the motion of a surface as it shifts downward relative to a datum such as sea-level. The opposite of subsidence is uplift, which results in an increase in elevation...
followed.
In anticipation of the ground subsidence, the landowner William Wells
William Wells (1818–1889)
William Wells was an English Liberal Party politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1852 to 1857 and from 1868 to 1874....
had an oak pile driven through the peat and firmly embedded in the underlying clay; he then cut the top level with the ground in 1851 and used it to monitor the peat subsidence. A few years later, the oak post was replaced by a cast iron column (reputedly from The Crystal Palace
The Crystal Palace
The Crystal Palace was a cast-iron and glass building originally erected in Hyde Park, London, England, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. More than 14,000 exhibitors from around the world gathered in the Palace's of exhibition space to display examples of the latest technology developed in...
building at The Great Exhibition
The Great Exhibition
The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations or The Great Exhibition, sometimes referred to as the Crystal Palace Exhibition in reference to the temporary structure in which it was held, was an international exhibition that took place in Hyde Park, London, from 1 May to 15 October...
of 1851), that was similarly founded on timber piles driven into the stable clay, with its top at the same level as the original post. This is the Holme Post that survives today. As it was progressively exposed it became unstable, and steel guys were added in 1957, when a second iron post was also installed 6 m to the northeast. The post now rises 4 m above the ground, and provides an impressive record of the ground subsidence; both posts are standing today.
The site is a 266 hectares (657.3 acre) National Nature Reserve
National Nature Reserve
For details of National nature reserves in the United Kingdom see:*National Nature Reserves in England*National Nature Reserves in Northern Ireland*National Nature Reserves in Scotland*National Nature Reserves in Wales...
(NNR) situated at the westernmost end of the East Anglian fens at the south-western edge of the former Whittlesey Mere. The Fen occupies a crescent-shaped site approximately 2.5 km long by 1.5 km wide and has been designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest
Site of Special Scientific Interest
A Site of Special Scientific Interest is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom. SSSIs are the basic building block of site-based nature conservation legislation and most other legal nature/geological conservation designations in Great Britain are based upon...
(SSSI) and Geological Conservation Review
Geological Conservation Review
The Geological Conservation Review is produced by the UK's Joint Nature Conservation Committee and is designed to identify those sites of national and international importance needed to show all the key scientific elements of the geological and geomorphological features of Britain...
Site (GCR). It is home to a variety of birds, including the Eurasian siskin
Eurasian Siskin
The Eurasian Siskin is a small passerine bird in the finch family Fringillidae. It is also called the European Siskin, Common Siskin or just Siskin. Other names include Black-headed Goldfinch, barley bird and aberdevine. It is very common throughout Europe and Asia...
, Nightingale
Nightingale
The Nightingale , also known as Rufous and Common Nightingale, is a small passerine bird that was formerly classed as a member of the thrush family Turdidae, but is now more generally considered to be an Old World flycatcher, Muscicapidae...
and Lesser redpoll
Lesser Redpoll
The Lesser Redpoll is a small passerine bird belonging to the genus Carduelis in the finch family, Fringillidae. It is the smallest, brownest and most streaked of the redpolls...
, and around 450 species of fungi.
Holme Fen is the largest Silver birch woodland in lowland Britain. It contains approximately 5 hectares of rare acid grassland and heath
Heath
-Habitats:* Heath or heathland, low-growing woody vegetation, mostly consisting of heathers and related species* Heaths in the British National Vegetation Classification system...
and a hectare of remnant raised bog, an echo of the habitat that would have dominated the area centuries ago. This is the most south-easterly bog of its type in Britain.
Holme approximately marks the south-western limit of Stage 2 of the Great Fen Project. The reserve is open to the public throughout the year.
Holmewood Hall
The Victorian Holmewood Hall on Church Street is now a conference and training centre. The current structure was built by MP William Wells, the grandson of Admiral Thomas Wells.During World War II, the Hall was used by U.S. Office of Strategic Services
Office of Strategic Services
The Office of Strategic Services was a United States intelligence agency formed during World War II. It was the wartime intelligence agency, and it was a predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency...
for packing airborne containers to be parachuted into occupied Europe. The OSS called this effort to supply anti-Nazi resistance groups Operation Carpetbagger
Operation Carpetbagger
During World War II, Operation Carpetbagger was a general term used for the aerial resupply of weapons and other matériel to resistance fighters in France, Italy and the Low Countries by the U.S...
.
The Floating Church
The village sign shows a man leading a horse towing the Floating Church of Holme that was dedicated to St Withburga in April 1897. It was the idea of the rector of Holme, Rev. George Broke that a church on a boat could get to areas of the fens which were difficult to reach to allow those who lived there to worship. The boat was 30 feet long and about 10 feet wide, it boasted an altar, font, a lectern which doubled as a pulpit and a harmonium. Between 1897 and 1904, 74 baptisms took place on board.Employment
- British Sugar CorporationBritish Sugar CorporationBritish Sugar plc is a subsidiary of Associated British Foods and the sole British producer of sugar from sugar beet.British Sugar processes all sugar beet grown in the UK and produces about half of the UK's quota of sugar, with the remainder covered by Tate & Lyle and imports...
- The village school
- AgricultureAgricultureAgriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
and associated trades
However most of Holme's population work outside the village in Huntingdon
Huntingdon
Huntingdon is a market town in Cambridgeshire, England. The town was chartered by King John in 1205. It is the traditional county town of Huntingdonshire, and is currently the seat of the Huntingdonshire district council. It is known as the birthplace in 1599 of Oliver Cromwell.-History:Huntingdon...
or Peterborough
Peterborough
Peterborough is a cathedral city and unitary authority area in the East of England, with an estimated population of in June 2007. For ceremonial purposes it is in the county of Cambridgeshire. Situated north of London, the city stands on the River Nene which flows into the North Sea...
.