Thorney, Cambridgeshire

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Thorney is a village about 8 miles east of Peterborough in the City of Peterborough unitary authority on the A47.Historically it was part of the Isle of Ely,which was considered part of Cambridgeshire but was transferred into the former county of Huntingdon and Peterborough and remained part of the Peterborough district into the transfer to Cambridgeshire and when it became a unitary authority in 1998.

Its long awaited new road bypass opened in Winter 2005. The opening of the bypass has made the village much quieter.

Its primary school is the Duke of Bedford Primary School.

The village was built at the command of the Duke of Bedford, as he wished to have a healthy place in which his farm workers could live. This explains the uniformity of the housing in the original centre of Thorney. Tracing its roots back to around 500AD when it started out as a Saxon settlement, the existence of Thorney Abbey made the settlement an important ecclesiastical centre for a long period of time, and the village is still the most northerly point of the Anglican Diocese of Ely.

Nestled on the outskirts of Thorney is the windmill which dates from 1787 and contains six floors. During the war, 4 prisoners of war from Zelchren, Germany stayed there. It once had six sails which sadly are no longer on it.

The village once had a railway station on the old Peterborough to Wisbech line. The station and the line were closed in the early 1960's along with many other similar lines throughout the country. Little evidence to suggest a rail link now remains, apart from level crossing gates at the side of Station Road. These gates are apparently not the original ones, the original being much larger.