OS grid reference TF2202 Region East Sovereign state United Kingdom Local time Saturday 3:14 AM | Ceremonial county Cambridgeshire Country England EU Parliament East of England | |
 | ||
Weather 9°C, Wind S at 11 km/h, 96% Humidity | ||
Eye is a village in the unitary authority area of Peterborough in England, south of Crowland and Eye Green. It was formerly in the Soke of Peterborough in Northamptonshire.
Contents
Map of Eye, UK
Its name came from Anglo-Saxon īeg = "island", likeliest here "dry ground in marsh".
History
There has been a church there since at least 1543. The present church, St. Matthew's, was built in 1846. Originally built with a spire, this was removed fairly recently for safety reasons and now has a roofed tower. In the SE corner of the churchyard at 2, Back Lane, stands the former village fire station dating from 1826 when it housed a Merryweather fire engine. Closed after 1945, it was repaired by the parish council in 2011 and is now a rare survivor of its type.
Eye Cornmill was a windmill with eight sails. Eye is separated from its sister village of Eye Green by the A47 trunk road. Eye was previously one of the brickmaking villages of the Peterborough area, along with Fletton, Yaxley and Stanground. There was a brickpit (a quarry for clay for making bricks). northolme in Crowland Road was the site of the Brick works Social club. When this closed the buildings and pit were taken over by the British Sub Aqua Club and run as a National Dive Site, managed by the Peterborough Branch. When this closed the buildings were demolished; the brickpit is now a nature reserve.
Eye is a large village by local standards and contains many amenities now lost in rural England. These include a post office, a public house, a kebab and pizza shop, a fish and chip shop, a butcher, a bakery, a cafe, a Chinese takeaway, community centre, a tanning salon, a Nisa store, a Boots pharmacy, a GP surgery, a dentist's surgery, two hairdressers, two MOT garages, numerous car dealers and an Italian restaurant.
The three-mile £7m A47 Eye bypass opened in October 1991.
There was an Eye Green railway station on the line between Peterborough and Norfolk, which closed many years ago.