St Ives, Cambridgeshire
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Template:Infobox England place with map St Ives is a medium-sized market town in the east of England, around 15 miles north-west of the city of Cambridge. It traditionally lay in the county of Huntingdonshire, which has been subsumed into Cambridgeshire.
Image:St Ives Cromwell statue.jpgPreviously called Slepe, its name was changed to St Ives after the body claimed to be that of a Persian bishop, Saint Ivo, was found buried in the town. For the past 1,000 years it has been home to some of the biggest markets in the country, and in the thirteenth century it was an important entrepôt port.
Built on the banks of the wide, fast-flowing River Great Ouse between Huntingdon and Ely, St Ives has a famous chapel on its bridge. In recent years, St Ives has been the victim of severe yearly flooding during winter. However, property development on the main flood plain continues, risking more severe floods in the future. In the Anglo-Saxon era, the River Great Ouse was a key position for trade with other tribes and to communicate with other tribes. This was because there is a ford and was the only natural crossing point of the river for miles. In the 18th to 19th centuries, it was a vital point for trade and navigation. It was used for trade because livestock and goods would be brought into the town via barges, but, when the railway was built and roads were improved, the need for this diminished, so the use of the River Great Ouse changed to mainly leisure and recreation.
St Ives has one main secondary school (St Ivo), 3 primary schools (Thorndown, Wheatfields and Westfield, which was recently named outstanding by OFSTED), 1 fire station, 1 police station and 1 bus station shared between a population of around 15,000 in 1991. There used to be a passenger train service between St Ives and Cambridge, but this closed in the 1970s. It is intended to construct the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway on the trackbed from St Ives to Cambridge.
St Ives has a successful rugby club. The rugby club's junior side has been very successful, bringing home the first County Championship trophy in 2003. The club is just on the outskirts of St Ives, just off Somersham Road.
St Ives is most famous for the nursery rhyme and riddle As I Was Going to St Ives, although it is not clear whether the rhyme refers to the Cambridgeshire town or one of several other St Ives around the country.
