St Neots

St Neots /sɨnt ˈniːʊts/ is a town and civil parish in the county of Cambridgeshire, England, next to the Bedfordshire county border. Until 1974 it was part of Huntingdonshire. It lies on the River Great Ouse in Huntingdonshire District, 15 miles (24 km) west of Cambridge and 49 miles (79 km) north of central London. St Neots is the largest town in Cambridgeshire (Cambridge and Peterborough are both cities) with a population of 26,356 in the 2001 census, although this has grown considerably since then with an estimated population of 29,450 in 2011. The town is named after the Cornish monk Saint Neot whose bones were stolen from the village of St Neot on Bodmin Moor and concealed in the nearby priory of the same name.

Pilgrimage to St Neots brought prosperity for the town, and it was granted a market charter in 1130. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the town enjoyed further prosperity through corn milling, brewing, stagecoach traffic and railways. After the Second World War, the town and its industry grew rapidly as London councils paid for new housing to be built in the town to rehouse families from London. The first London overspill housing was completed in the early 1960s. Today, St Neots is a thriving commuter town.