Kimbolton, Cambridgeshire
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Kimbolton is a large village in Cambridgeshire, England. It is approximately 7 miles east of Higham Ferrers, 7 miles west of St Neots and 24 miles west of Cambridge, 14 miles north of Bedford and 31 miles south of Peterborough.
Although technically a village, the settlement has a well-defined centre, a small market place, and has the look and urban feel of a rather small town. The centrepiece of the village is Kimbolton Castle which forms the main building of Kimbolton School (now a boarding school), but its predecessor on the same site was once home and prison to Catherine of Aragon, the first wife of Henry VIII. Catherine died at Kimbolton Castle in 1536 and was transported from there to Peterborough Cathedral to be buried.
Kimbolton, and the lands of its soke, comprised the only estate of King Harold in Huntingdonshire, It is believed that Harold had a hunting lodge nearby. Kimbolton and its church, St Andrew's, appear in the Domesday book, compiled in 1086.
The main road through Kimbolton (once part of the main A45 trunk road from Birmingham to Felixstowe but, after the opening of the A14 redesignated as the B645) bends through four tight right angles in quick succession. Originally, the road travelled directly through the outskirts of the village, nearer to the River Kym to the north. In 1200, a prominent local landowner, Geoffrey Fitzpiers, Earl of Essex and Chief Justice to King John, who constructed the first castle on the present site, received a Royal charter to hold a market and fair in Kimbolton - there is still a fair every September, known as the "Statute Fair" - referred to affectionately by locals as the "Statty". The main road was diverted to its present course to take it through the market place. 800 years later, as a result of numerous vehicles striking walls and houses near the sharp bends, car transporters are not allowed in this village.
In World War II, the U.S.A.F. 379th Bombardment Group was stationed at the nearby Kimbolton Airfield from May 1943 to June 1945.
Kimbolton Fireworks, a well-known manufacturer of fireworks and organiser of public fireworks displays, is based in Kimbolton.
[edit] Legends
Kimbolton Castle also has a ghostly legend. The wife of Henry VIII, Catherine of Aragon died there, and to this day her ghost is said to haunt the gallery.
