On the north bank of the Great Ouse a few miles east of Huntingdon, St. Ives is one of the most delightful of river towns, a tourist centre and thriving residential community of over 18,000 inhabitants.  From the river it presents an almost continental appearance with its quay and grouped buildings backed by a church spire or two.

The town has been a place of importance through the centuries and in earlier times its Easter fair was one of the busiest in England drawing crowds from all over Europe.  Indeed it was its markets and fairs that led to the founding of St. Ives.  The original village of Slepe became, in the late 10th Century, a possession of Ramsey Abbey.  At around AD1000 the bones of the supposed Saint Ivo were found near Slepe and moved to a Shrine at Ramsey.  Ivo was said to have lived and died at Slepe in the 6th Century.  A priory, founded on the spot where the bones were found, prospered despite being ravaged by fire in the 13th Century.  Between it and the church was a stretch of open country on which an Easter fair was granted in 1110 by Henry I.  Every trade had its own stalls at this fair with passages between, and after some years these were replaced by permanent shops and thus a town area grew up on the fair site and alongside the original village.  By the 16th Century this site was wholly urbanised and fair and market merged with shops and with wharves that lined the river bank.  The narrow lanes of this part of St. Ives are a reminder of the earlier town.  In the 17th Century it was for five years the home of Oliver Cromwell whose statue stands in the town centre.

St. Ives became a quiet country town and it still retains this character today although modern housing estates extend on three sides, and the St. Ivo School and Recreation Centre are important modern features.  The town's shopping centre retains its original character and the Bank Holiday markets see the streets filled with stalls and people, a highly-animated scene.  The town centre has now been relieved of through traffic by the bypass.

Much of the story of Huntingdonshire is told in the exhibits of the Norris Museum, an excellent collection housed in a riverside building erected in 1932; local art and bygones are on display as well as prehistoric items.  The museum is open from 10.00 am to 1.00 pm and 2.00 pm to 5.00 pm (4.00 pm in Winter) on Mondays to Fridays; and 10.00 am to 12 noon on Saturdays.  It is open on Saturday and Sunday afternoons from May to September.

Older buildings in the town include the fine riverside church which is mostly of the 15th Century and whose soaring spire has been rebuilt after being hit by an aircraft during World War One.  The church houses an organ screen built by Comper in 1894.  The Roman Catholic Church is unusual in that it was originally built, to Pugin's designs, at Cambridge, but in 1902 was brought to St. Ives and re-erected brick by brick.  Civic pride is reflected in the mid-19th Century Town Hall and the Corn Exchange (the latter now used as a public hall) whilst older features of the town include the splendid 15th Century bridge over the Great Ouse, one of the three surviving bridges in England to have a chapel standing upon them (the others are at Rotherham and Wakefield).  Several older houses line the quay and narrow central streets - Barnes House dates from the 18th Century and the Manor House goes back to about 1600.

As a riverside town, St. Ives has excellent recreational facilities along the waterway and indeed the Great Ouse, as well as being ideal for fishing and boating, offers riverside walks in the most delightful surroundings - rather like walking through a painter's idyllic canvas.  The town has, however, other amenities.  The St. Ivo Recreation Centre, used as part of the school complex, serves not only the town but the district with its many amenities.  The Free Church Centre, extensively renovated, now provides, in addition to facilities for worship, a day-care centre with full amenities.  Weddings and receptions can be held in the same building.

The town retains some older inns and hotels and one of them, the Slepe Hall Hotel, carries with it the original name of the place.  Here is an elegantly-decorated restaurant with splendid Victorian decor and an Egon Ronay mention.  On the town's eastern edge is the Manchester Arms, a pleasant old country pub full of oak beams, with a splendid restaurant and with music in the bar most evenings.  This is an inn in the best traditions with, around it, gardens, a paddock and an aviary.  Grander is the facade of the Golden Lion in the town centre, with its little window balconies almost 'foreign' and with the lion itself high up on the wall.  Mention should also be made of 'Floods', now a public house, which has interesting souvenirs of old St. Ives together with photographs of past floods.