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- St Neots is one of the largest towns in Cambridgeshire, England, after the cities of Cambridge and Peterborough. There is evidence of very early occupation in the area. In Roman times a fortified settlement was established, and present-day Eynesbury in particular became important, in addition to scattered settlements west of the River Great Ouse. A holy man named Saint Neot had died about the year 877 AD and his relics were held for a century in a parish in Cornwall. About 974 AD a Priory was established in the northern part of Eynesbury; the landowner took the relics of Saint Neot from the Cornish church and conveyed them to Eynesbury. This brought fame to the Eynesbury Priory, and gradually that part of the town became known as St Neots. After the Norman Conquest the Priory was passed from the monastery at Ely to being a dependent branch of the Norman Abbey of Bec, and it grew in importance until the Dissolution of the Monasteries, when the Priory was destroyed and Neot's relics lost. The importance of the town increased greatly in the early nineteenth century, when stage coach travel to the north of England became important. Eaton Socon was on the Great North Road and many coaches used inns there to change and stable horses, and to refresh passengers - four such coaching inns are still operating today as public houses. Some of the coaches travelled through St Neots as well, as did others on an east-to-west trajectory from Cambridge. The river too brought much trade to the towns. When the railway opened in 1850, St Neots had a wayside station, but the stage coach trade and the river traffic slumped, causing for a time a loss of prosperity in the area, though that was later regained. After 1945 a considerable expansion of the housing stock took place as part of a national scheme named London overspill, designed to transfer London residents away from slum housing. The housebuilding programme continued sporadically under other names, and accelerated in the twenty-first century. The county boundary between Huntingdonshire and Bedfordshire had been the River Great Ouse, but in 1965 the districts of Eaton Ford and Eaton Socon were brought into St Neots. Huntingdonshire was abolished (as a county-level unit - it continues to be a District Council) and replaced by Cambridgeshire. This history article covers the modern urban area of St Neots, which includes Eaton Ford, Eaton Socon and Eynesbury. (en)
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