Editing St Neots (section)

===Early history===
Remains of [[Iron Age]] settlement have been found in the town centre; a Roman encampment was located in the town.<ref name = tebbutt6>C F Tebbutt, ''St Neots: the History of a Huntingdonshire Town'', Philimore & Co, Chichester, corrected reprint 1984, {{ISBN|0-85033-270-2}}, page 6</ref>  It became known as Eynesbury, after Ernulf, a local leader.<ref name = bushby12>David Bushby, ''St Neots: A History and Celebration'', The Francis Frith CoIlection, Salisbury, 2005, ISBN 1-84589-216-X, pages 12 to 15</ref>

Neot was a holy man who founded a monastery near the present-day Cornish village of [[St Neot, Cornwall|St Neot]]. When he died, his remains were kept there as holy relics, and many pilgrims visited, making donations. In the later tenth century a priory was established immediately north of the village of Eynesbury in what is now St Neots. The landowners, Leofric and his wife Leoflaed, obtained Neot's remains (leaving an arm in Cornwall), realising that they would attract pilgrims, and their money, to their priory. This was successful, and the priory became rich and famous, and the area became known as St Neots. St Neots subsequently became a separate parish from Eynesbury sometime between 1113 and 1204, with the boundary between them being a stream called Hen Brook.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Page |first1=William |last2=Proby |first2=Granville |last3=Ladds |first3=S. Inskip |title=A History of the County of Huntingdon |date=1932 |publisher=Victoria County History |location=London |pages=272–280 |url=https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/hunts/vol2/pp272-280 |access-date=24 October 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Ordnance Survey 25 inch map, 1889 |url=https://maps.nls.uk/view/114490256 |website=National Library of Scotland |access-date=23 October 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Youngs |first1=Frederic |title=Guide to the Local Administrative Units of England: Volume 1 |date=1979 |publisher=Royal Historical Society |location=London |isbn=0901050679 |page=252}}</ref>

About this time, the settlement to the west of the River Ouse was known as Ea-tun, meaning "waterside village". In Norman times, a sub-division of a Baron's area of control was called a "soke" (a district within certain legal privileges could be exercised) and in French the area was called the Soka de Eton, and later Eaton Socon. Before the river was bridged, people waded across it, and this was called a "ford", from which the immediate area became called Eaton Ford.<ref name = skeat49>Rev Walter Skeat, ''The Place-Names of Bedfordshire'', Cambridge Antiquarian Society, 1906, page 49</ref>

The Priory was destroyed during the [[Dissolution of the Monasteries]] in the 16th century, and the relics of St Neot were lost.

The River Great Ouse was made navigable from St Ives to Bedford, via St Neots, in 1629, increasing river-borne trade in the town.<ref name = godber259>Joyce Godber, ''The History of Bedfordshire 1066 - 1888'', Bedfordshire County Council, Bedford, 1984, ISBN 0 90704 1 272</ref>

{{main|Battle of St Neots (1648)}}
[[File:Neots pond.png|thumb|The boating pond at St Neots]]The [[Second English Civil War]] began in April 1648. The [[Roundhead|Parliamentarians]] under [[Oliver Cromwell]] were in control, but [[Charles I of England|King Charles I]] planned to overthrow them by force of arms. An attempt to seize London by his supporters, the Royalists, failed. A group of them retreated to St Neots and planned to spend the night of 9 July resting in the town. In the small hours of 10 July Parliamentary troops attacked, taking them by surprise, and the battle centred on the market square area. Many Royalists were killed or taken prisoner.<ref name="battle">Peter Raggatt, ''The Battle of St Neots'', published by St Neots Museum, undated</ref>

In the 18th and 19th centuries the town enjoyed prosperity through corn milling and brewing, and from [[stagecoach]] traffic and from 1850 its [[railway]] connection. Eaton Socon was on the [[Great North Road (Great Britain)|Great North Road]] and had inns used as a staging post and overnight stop for stagecoaches travelling between London and [[York]]; some of the routes ran via St Neots instead of Eaton Socon, and intersected with traffic on the east–west route from the Eastern Counties and the Midlands.