HUNTINGDON, municipal borough and county town of Huntingdonshire, England, on the left bank of the Ouse, 59 m. N. of London by rail. Pop. (1931) 4,108. Huntingdon (Huntan dun, Huntersdune) was recovered from the Danes c. 919 by Ed ward the Elder, who raised a castle there, probably on the site of an older fortress. In I010 the Danes destroyed the town. The castle was among those destroyed by order of Henry II. At the time of the Domesday Survey Huntingdon was divided into four divisions, two containing 116 burgesses and the other two 14o. Most of the burgesses belonged to the king. King John in 1205 granted them the liberties and privileges held by other boroughs and increased the farm to £20. The borough was incorporated by Richard III. in 1483, and in 1630 Charles I. granted a new charter, which remained in operation until 1835. The burgesses were rep resented in parliament by two members from 1295 to 1867, when the number was reduced to one, and in 1885 they ceased to be separately represented. Huntingdon owed its prosperity to its situation on the Roman Ermine Street, and is the centre of an agricultural district. The market held on Saturday was granted to the burgesses by King John. During the Civil Wars Hunting don was several times occupied by the Royalists, but was a great Puritan centre. It forms a twin town with Godmanchester.
The town consists principally of one street, about a mile long, in the centre of which is the market-place. The parish church of St. Mary occupies the site of the priory of Augustinian Canons already existing in the loth century, in which David Bruce, Scot tish earl of Huntingdon, was buried. All Saints' church has slight remains of the original Norman church. Some Norman remains of the hospice of St. John the Baptist founded by David, king of Scotland, at the end of the 12th century were incorporated in the buildings of Huntingdon grammar school, once attended by Oliver Cromwell and by Samuel Pepys. Hinchingbrooke House, an Eliza bethan mansion chiefly of the i6th century, and the seat of the Cromwell family, occupies the site of a Benedictine nunnery. A racecourse is situated in the bend of the Ouse to the south of the town.