Litlington, Cambridgeshire

Description
Litlington, a village and a parish in Cambridgeshire. The village stands 3 miles N of Icknield Street, at this boundary with Herts, 3 S of the Roman Road to Cambridge, 3 NE of Ashwell station on the G.N.B., and 3 1/2 NW of Eoy-bton. It has a post office under Eoyston; money order and telegraph office, Bassingbourn. The parish comprises 2172 acres; population, 568. A Roman station is supposed to have been in the near vicinity. Upwards of 200 sepulchral urns, and other funereal vessels, were found in 1821 by the side of the Roman Road, at a short distance from Limloe Hill. The most remarkable of these are preserved in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, and they form the most numerous and perfect collection of their kind that has ever been discovered in Britain. The spot where they were found had, from time immemorial, been called " Heaven's Walls," and is said to have been regarded with a degree of superstitious dread. It was a rectangular space of 114 feet by 84, enclosed by old walls, which had given rise to its name, and it proved to be a fine example of a Roman cemetery, or " Ustrinum," for burning and burying the dead. At the SE and SW corners were two heaps of wood ashes-as much as would have loaded five carts, and were undoubtedly the remains of funeral piles. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Ely; net value, £250 with residence. Patron, Clare College, Cambridge. The church is Early English, in good condition ; consists of nave, aisles, and chance], with porch and tower; and contains an old gravestone, with Norman-French inscription, to the memory of Robert de St Alban. There are Congregational and Primitive Methodi&fc chapels.