My name is  MR RONALD PIKE

My e-bay business is called Electron Vault

e-mail address: pike.clan@virgin.net

POSTCODE: CB24 8UQ

Note: It USED to be CB4 8UQ this has now been changed.

GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION:

The village of COTTENHAM I live in is about six miles NORTH of the lovely UNIVERSITY city of CAMBRIDGE & just SOUTH of the FENS, the now very largely drained marshland, once a rival for the EVERGLADES of FLORIDA. The soil of the FENS is mostly pure BLACK PEAT & one of the most productive farmlands in the world. COTTENHAM is the longest village in ENGLAND, being several miles long! At the NORTH end is a NORMAN church begun in 1087, with four very distinctive `RUSSIAN` style corners to its tower, they look like large stone onions! Just after the churchyard ends,  the ground falls away to the  FENS which is below sea level. The village was originaly SAXON in origin, but after the church was built by the NORMANS, it was decided the position of the village, so near the great marsh was unhealthy because of what we now call MALARIA. So the village was abandoned and moved a couple of miles SOUTH, the CHURCH naturaly remained in place, Like a lonely lighthouse looking out over the hundreds of square miles of the great marsh. The next inhabited place was the ISLAND of ELY, with its great cathederal, 16 miles north. It is now called the `ISLE of ELY` & the fact it was once a very real island is largely forgotten.

Over centuries the marsh was drained and the village gradualy `filled in` the space between its new location and the church. It has now also expanded south, making it nearly four miles long, with much of it only one row of houses wide!

Just to the north west of COTTENHAM is a very ordinary looking ditch, it was originaly dug by the ROMANS, as a part of the system they used to get grain shipments from NORFOLK to the east of us, to the LEGIONS defending HADRIANS WALL in the far north of ENGLAND. This was of course nearly 2,000 years ago.