17th century Map of Manor of Doddington is topic of booklet

The map of the Manor of Doddington, which also includes March and Wimblington, was missing for nearly half a century before being deposited with Cambridgeshire Archives in 2001, and is of great historic interest.

It has been referred to in various texts about Doddington and March, and shows the houses, fields, tracks, and roads of the village as well as of neighbouring Wimblington and the town of March in the 17th century.

The Cambridgeshire Records Society, with the permission of the map's owner and Cambridgeshire Archives, has reproduced full-size copies of the map and produced a booklet entitled 'An Old Manor Map' which details the research undertaken by the booklet's authors.

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David Edwards and William Franklin undertook research into the date of the map, its maker, and also into why it was made.

They also looked at what we could learn from it about the history of Doddington, Wimblington and March.

The 71-page booklet, which also contains transcripts of key documents of the period, along with the four sheets that make up the map, is presented in a specially designed folder.

David and William will present their work and the finished result at the booklet's launch at the March Museum, in High Street, on Saturday, November 29, at 11am - everyone is welcome to attend.

Copies of the booklet will be on sale after the presentation, priced at £24.

The Manor of Doddington dates back to the 10th century, when it was one of the manors obtained by the monastery at Ely.

It became the principal home for the Bishop of Ely, with Bishop Balsham dying there in 1286.

The manor was the largest ecclesiastical parish in Cambridgeshire with 38,000 acres, and its tithes and glebe rents made it the most valuable in England by the 19th century.

The 15th-century thatched rectory house was destroyed by fire in 1871.