This extract is from "Samuel Lewis Topographical Gazeetter - 1831"
YAXLEY, a parish (formerly a market town) in the hundred of NORMAN-CROSS, county of HUNTINGDON, 14 miles (N.N.W.) from Huntingdon, and 73 (N. by W.) from London, containing 1070 inhabitants. The village is irregularly, but neatly, built, extending for a considerable distance alone the high road from Stilton to Farcet, and is amply supplied with water. At a short distance to the east is Whittlesea mere, one of the most extensive sheets of water in the kingdom; it is six miles in length, and three miles broad, and abounds with fish. The barracks at Norman Cross, in this parish, were used, during the late war, as a place of confinement for French prisoners, but are now partly dismantled. The neighbourhood is extremely productive of sedges and reeds, the preparation of which affords employment to a considerable portion of the inhabitants : a fair is held annually on Holy Thursday, for cattle. The living is a discharged vicarage, in the archdeaconry of Huntingdon, and diocese of Lincoln, rated in the king's books at £11, and in the patronage of the Crown. The church, dedicated to St. Peter, and situated on an eminence at the western extremity of the town, is a handsome structure, principally in the later style of English architecture, with some portions of earlier date; the tower is surmounted by a finely proportioned crocketed spire, supported by flying buttresses. There is a place of worship for Independents. Mrs. Jane Proby, in 1712, bequeathed £600 for building a school-room, and for paying a master to instruct twenty boys of the parish; and, in 1711, Mr. Francis Proby bequeathed £200 towards building a workhouse, and for teaching poor girls to work. There are also some other charitable bequests for distribution among the poor.