This extract is from "Samuel Lewis Topographical Gazeetter - 1831"
All Saints Church CONINGTON, a parish in the hundred of NORMAN-CROSS, county of HUNTINGDON, 3 miles (S.E. by S.) from Stilton,
containing 215 inhabitants. The living is a rectory, in the archdeaconry of Huntingdon, and diocese of Lincoln rated in the king's books at £19.6.8., and in the patronage of Dr. Procter. The church, dedicated to All Saints, is a large handsome structure, having an embattled tower with octagonal pinnacles, and the windows adorned with stained glass; it contains many monuments to the Cottons, and an inscribed tablet to the memory of Prince Henry of Scotland, Lord of Conington, &c. : the font is characteristic of the Norman and early English styles. The Rev. James Oram, in 1769, left £500 for teaching poor children. At the village, within a square intrenchment, are vestiges of an ancient castle, which, with the lordship, was given by Canute to Turkill, a Danish lord, who, taking advantage of his residence among the East Angles, invited over Sueno to plunder the country. After Turkill's departure it fell to Waldeof, Earl of Huntingdon, who married Judith, niece to the Conqueror, from whom it descended to the royal line of Scotland, and thence to the Cottons, ancestors of Sir Robert Cotton, celebrated for his valuable collection of books and MSS., known by the name of the Cottonian Library. Sir Robert Cotton, Bart., on making an excavation for a pond, found the skeleton of a sea-fish, twenty feet long, lying in perfect silt, about six feet below the surface of the ground, and as much above the present level of the fens.