Cottenham 

Visit Cottenham Parish Website

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Historical notes about the Parish of Cottenham

We should come when Cottenham's great orchards are in bloom, for it is a lovely sight. Its pleasantest corner is where the village ends, where the 15^th century church is crowned by a tower seen for miles. Round the walls of the church runs a gallery of ancient gargoyles, which may keep off evil spirits, as their medieval carvers believed, but do not frighten the sparrows, which we found nesting in their mouths. Indoor eight heads look out from between the 14^th century arches, crowned with 15^th century clerestories. The chancel has richly moulded stone seats, and an east window with tracery like water-lily leaves. An old chest has five locks with keys kept by five men, and there are oak benches made by a village craftsman last century. He has carved on them flowers, plants, and ferns growing in this countryside. None of the pews are the same and they are carved with thistle, clover, figs, berries, ivy, reeds and arum lilies.

On the chancel wall is a record of the great storm which destroyed the steeple in 1617, it being rebuilt by Katherine Pepys. This was once a place full of that immortal name; Pepys of the Diary tells us that in Queen Elizabeth’s day there were 26 families in Cottenham named Pepys. Here was born that Thomas Tenison who was enthroned at Canterbury and was one of the Seven Bishops who sounded the death knell of the Stuarts in 1688. A brave man, he remained at his post through the Plague, and lived to preach the funeral service of Nell Gwynne and to crown the last of the Stuarts and the first of the Georges.

In the Cottenham churchyard sleeps Florence Cox, Commandant of the Red Cross Hospital here in the war, and by her sleeps her husband after 40 years work as a doctor, friend of the friendless, as her inscription says. Her name is inscribed with those of the 59 men who fell in the war, the memorial to them having a striking figure in marching kit; it is floodlit by night and its noble words are these:

Their lot the glorious price to pay,

Ours to receive, with grateful pride

That Freedom lives with us today

Because they died.

But what will seem to most people the best story of this village is that in September 1604 a baby was christened here, doubtless at this very font, who name was John Colledge. He grew to manhood and, like many liberty-loving men of those days, crossed the Atlantic, where his family took root and after nearly 300 years produced a President of the United States. In this corner of our countryside began the line which led to the White House.

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Hotels, Apartments and B&B's in Cottenham

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