Now a village, Burwell was a medieval market town.
Cropmarks indicated the extent of the settlement.
Burwell Priory, which once stood here, was a
Benedictine monastery founded at some point before 1110 by Ansgot of Burwell. It was an
alien priory belonging to
Grande-Sauve Abbey in
Aquitaine. It was dissolved in 1427 and sold to the college of
Tattershall, along with its chapels at
Authorpe,
Carlton,
Muckton, and
Walmgate, and other lands around Burwell. The
manor house, Burwell Hall, was in Burwell Park, and was built in 1760 for Matthew Lister. It was demolished in 1958, and only the stables remain. The manor itself was previously held by Henry Percy, Duke of Northumberland; John, Duke of Bedford; Ralf, Lord Treasurer Cromwell; and Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. The
parish church of Saint Michael, became redundant on 13 May 1981 and was taken over by the
Redundant Churches Fund (now The
Churches Conservation Trust) on 27 October 1982. It is Grade I
listed. The village also had chapels of the
Wesleyan Methodists and
United Reformed churches, which merged in 1988 making the Wesleyan building redundant. The combined church has since closed. Burwell District Council School was built in 1825 as a
National School. It closed in December 1941 with only eleven children on the roll. ==Community==