Catworth

Village and civil parish in England

Catworth is a village and civil parish in Cambridgeshire, England. Catworth lies approximately 9 mile (14 km) west of Huntingdon. The civil parish covers an area of Catworth village has two parts, Catworth, at the top of the hill, and Little Catworth, at the bottom. Catworth is situated within Huntingdonshire which is a non metropolitan district of Cambridgeshire as well as being a historic county of England.

In 1085, William the Conqueror ordered that a survey should be carried out across his kingdom to discover who owned which parts and what it was worth. The survey took place in 1086 and the results were recorded in what, since the 12th century, has become known as the Domesday Book. Starting with the king himself, for each landholder within a county there is a list of their estates or manors; and, for each manor, there is a summary of the resources of the manor, the amount of annual rent that was collected by the lord of the manor both in 1066 and in 1086, together with the taxable value. Catworth was listed in the Domesday Book in the Hundred of Navisford in Northamptonshire; the name of the settlement was written as Cateworde in the Domesday Book. In 1086, there were five manors at Catworth; the annual rent paid to the lords of the manors in 1066 had been £7.5 and the rent had fallen to £6.75 in 1086. The Domesday Book does not explicitly detail the population of a place but it records that there were 34 households at Catworth. Using these figures then an estimate of the population of Catworth in 1086 is that it was within the range of 119 and 170 people. The Domesday Book uses a number of units of measure for areas of land that are now unfamiliar terms, such as hides and ploughlands. In different parts of the country, these were terms for the area of land that a team of eight oxen could plough in a single season and are equivalent to ; this was the amount of land that was considered to be sufficient to support a single family. By 1086, the hide had become a unit of tax assessment rather than an actual land area; a hide was the amount of land that could be assessed as £1 for tax purposes. The survey records that there were 10.62 ploughlands at Catworth in 1086 and that there was the capacity for a further 5.38 ploughlands. There were eight households at Little Catworth.

As a civil parish, Catworth has a parish council. The parish council is elected by the residents of the parish who have registered on the electoral roll; the parish council is the lowest tier of government in England. A parish council is responsible for providing and maintaining a variety of local services including allotments and a cemetery; grass cutting and tree planting within public open spaces such as a village green or playing fields. The parish council reviews all planning applications that might affect the parish and makes recommendations to Huntingdonshire District Council, which is the local planning authority for the parish. The parish council also represents the views of the parish on issues such as local transport, policing and the environment. The parish council raises its own tax to pay for these services, known as the parish precept, which is collected as part of the Council Tax. The parish council at Catworth has seven members. Catworth was in the historic and administrative county of Huntingdonshire until 1965. From 1965, the village was part of the new administrative county of Huntingdon and Peterborough. Then in 1974, following the Local Government Act 1972, Catworth became a part of the county of Cambridgeshire. The second tier of local government is Huntingdonshire District Council which is a non metropolitan district of Cambridgeshire and has its headquarters in Huntingdon. Huntingdonshire District Council has 52 councillors representing 29 district wards. Huntingdonshire District Council collects the council tax, and provides services such as building regulations, local planning, environmental health, leisure and tourism. Catworth is a part of the district ward of Ellington and is represented on the district council by one councillor. Cambridgeshire County Council consists of 69 councillors representing 60 electoral divisions. Catworth is part of the electoral division of Sawtry and Ellington The land in the north of the parish is characterised as Oadby Member Diamicton, from the Quaternary period, with rocks formed during Ice Age conditions by glaciers scouring the land. The population had decreased slightly to 347 in 146 households in the 2011 census. In that same census, 66.9% described themselves as Christian, 23.3% described themselves as having no religion, 9.2% did not specify a religion, and 0.6% described themselves as having another religion.