Long Stanton: Local government

Local government

Richard de Braose evidently held unlawful views of frankpledge on Tonys fee after becoming guardian of Ralph (V) de Tony in 1264, but they presumably ceased when Ralph came of age in 1276. (fn. 1) John of Hedenham was said c. 1274 to have held the view on the fee of Philip of Stanton. (fn. 2) That manor, Colvilles, later held courts from which a single membrane of one roll has survived from 1438. (fn. 3) The lords of Walwyns manor also claimed the view in 1298-9, (fn. 4) and it was confirmed to Sir John Walwyn in 1322. (fn. 5) In the mid 17th century Sir Thomas Hatton was holding courts for his manors of Long Stanton, Cheyneys, Walwyns, and Colvilles. The court usually swore in two constables, two aletasters, two haywards, and two field reeves, and was active in enforcing agricultural bylaws. The records of several courts between 1640 and 1663 survive. (fn. 6)

By the 1680s at least some of the court's functions had been assumed by All Saints' vestry, which was electing constables and a hayward. In 1695 the vestry appointed a herdsman. The two parishes may then have shared constables as they did in the 1780s. In the 1720s the same officers were being chosen by the vestry, with the addition of four field reeves in the 1730s, probably signalling the cessation of manorial courts except for tenurial business. (fn. 7)

All Saints parish in the mid 17th century owned a town house, two other tenements, and 24 arable selions. The town house stood north of the vicarage, probably on the site of the later Church Cottages. (fn. 8)

Expenditure on the poor in the late 1730s was c. £18 a year. (fn. 9) In 1776 All Saints laid out c. £40 and St. Michael's nearly as much; by 1785 they were spending £56 and £32 respectively. Expenditure in St. Michael's later increased rapidly; in 1803 there were 14 parishioners on permanent relief and 25 on occasional, compared with 17 and 18 respectively in All Saints, in a population nearly three times as large. The poor rate in St. Michael's was then the highest in the hundred. (fn. 10) After c. 1812 St. Michael's brought its spending under control, though the number of poor permanently on the charge of the parish remained at 6 and those occasionally relieved fell only from 12 to 8 between 1813 and 1815. Spending nevertheless decreased from £183 to £81, though still accounting for nearly all the parish's expenditure. All Saints had more on permanent relief, 17 in 1813 and 14 in 1815, with only 2 or 3 receiving intermittent payments. Its total annual expenditure was over £300, of which about two thirds went on the poor. (fn. 11) The two parishes continued to have different patterns of expenditure until 1834, All Saints being relatively heavily burdened in the years 1816- 22 and bringing the cost down in the 1820s, St. Michael's spending less heavily in the late 1810s than the early 1820s. (fn. 12)

Both parishes were in Chesterton poor-law union from 1836 and Chesterton rural district from 1894. The united civil parish was in South Cambridgeshire district from 1974. (fn. 13)