Wisbech

Wisbech (ˈwɪzbiːtʃ ) is a market town, inland port and civil parish in the Fenland district in Cambridgeshire, England. In 2011 it had a population of 31,573. The town lies in the far north-east of Cambridgeshire, bordering Norfolk and only 5 miles (8 km) south of Lincolnshire. The tidal River Nene running through the town is spanned by two road bridges. Wisbech is in the Isle of Ely (a former administrative county) and has been described as 'the Capital of The Fens". Wisbech is noteworthy for its fine examples of Georgian architecture, particularly the parade of houses along the North Brink, which includes the National Trust property of Peckover House and the circus surrounding The Castle. The place name 'Wisbech' is first attested in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the year 656, where it appears as Wisbeach. It is recorded in the 1086 Domesday Book as Wisbeach. The name Wisbech is popularly believed to mean "on the back of the (River) Ouse", Ouse being a common Celtic word relating to water and the name of a river that once flowed through the town. A more scholarly opinion is that the first element derives from the River Wissey, which used to run to Wisbech, and that the name means 'the valley of the river Wissey'. A wide range of spellings is found on trade tokens in the Wisbech & Fenland Museum and in newspapers, books, maps and other documents, e.g. Wisbece, Wisebece, Wisbbece, Wysbeche, Wisbeche, Wissebeche, Wysebeche, Wysbech, Wyxbech, Wyssebeche, Wisbidge, Wisbich and Wisbitch, until the spelling of the name of the town was fixed by the local council in the 19th century. During the Iron Age, the area where Wisbech would develop lay in the west of the Brythonic Iceni tribe's territory. Icenian coins have been found in both March and Wisbech. Like the rest of Cambridgeshire, Wisbech was part of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of East Anglia. It served as a port on The Wash. One of the first authentic references to Wisbech occurs in a charter dated 664 granting the Abbey at Medeshamstede (now Peterborough) land in Wisbech and in 1000, when Oswy and Leoflede, on the admission of their son Aelfwin as a monk, gave the vill to the monastery of Ely.