Yaxley in 1838
Yaxley is in Norman Cross hundred, just on the right of the road which leads from Norman Cross on the high north road to Peterborough. It is 77 miles from Hicks’s Hall, London. The parish has an area of 4,290 acres, and had in 1831 a population of 1,140, nearly three-fifths agricultural. Yaxley is small, and irregularly laid out, but the houses are neatly built, and the situation, on a fine gravelly eminence, is good. The church has various portions in the perpendicular style, intermixed with others of earlier date ; it has a tower and fine crocketed spire with pinnacles and flying buttresses. At Norman Cross, on the high north road, in this parish, are extensive barracks, partly of wood and partly of brick, used during the late war as a depot for French prisoners, of whom many thousands were confined here : the barracks are now partly dismantled. Yaxley is called Takesle in Domesday ; it had formerly a market, which, after being discontinued, was revived when the barracks were occupied, but has since fallen again into disuse. The living is a vicarage of the yearly value of £177, with a glebe-house, in the gift of the lord chancellor.
There were in the parish in 1835 five infant or dame-schools with 77 children ; one day and boarding school with 24 children, two day and Sunday-schools, with nearly 60 children, and one Sunday-school with 40 children. One of the day and Sunday-schools is endowed.
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