GenUKI Contents | Cambridgeshire | Nearby places |
"DRY DRAYTON, a parish in the hundred of Chesterton, in the county of Cambridge, 3 miles south-west of Oakington station on the Great Eastern line, and 5½ north-west of Cambridge, its post town. The village is small, and wholly agricultural. The land is chiefly arable, and the soil a stiff clay. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Ely, value £321, in the patronage of the Rev. Dr. Smith. The church is a Gothic structure, dedicated to SS. Peter and Paul, and contains a brass of a man in armour. The tithes were commuted for land and a money payment, under the Enclosure Act of 1809. The parochial charities amount to about £23 per annum, £13 of which goes to Haslop's free school."BAR HILL, During the 1950s, it was realised that the number of houses needed in South Cambridgeshire was such that it could not be absorbed by the city or the existing villages without compromising their essential characters. A number of new villages were therefore essential, and it was decided by the County Council to site the first of these on 350 acres of Bar House Farm in the parish of Dry Drayton north west of the city.
Work began on the site in November 1965, and the first residents, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Burry moved in on May 24th 1967. The primary school was finished by the end of 1967,and it opened with two teachers, Mr. Bill Norton, the headmaster and Mrs. Pauline Stelmaszuk, plus 26 children in May the following year. Seven of the 13 shops in The Mall, the shopping precinct, opened during 1968- 69. A unique and novel feature was that all residents would contribute towards a Village Trust which would undertake the provision of a Village hall as well as the maintenance of communal areas. Bar hill finally came of age as a village in May 1969 when it had grown sufficiently to warrant a Parish Council of five members."