Castor, Cambridgeshire

Castor today is a small village lying at c. 24m OD on the north-facing slope of a limestone ridge 8km west of Peterborough. It has been known since the nineteenth century that the village contains substantial Roman remains, possibly of a small town. A nunnery, founded at Castor in the seventh century, is thought to have been located near the present church and was reputedly destroyed by the Danes in 1010AD. Castor today is arranged either side of two approximately parallel streets, which diverge at the eastern end, possibly originally in order to respect a precinct enclosure around the area of the present church. More recent settlement extensions lie to the north, south and west of the earlier village core. To the west, Castor is now almost conjoined with the neighbouring small village of Ailsworth.