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.

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.

In the small hours of 10 July Parliamentary troops attacked, taking them by surprise, and the battle centred on the market square area.

[6] 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 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.

Between 1851 and 1885 George Bower's Vulcan Iron Foundry was a major employer, supplying equipment for gasworks throughout the British Isles and worldwide.

[15] This will support the eastern expansion of St Neots, and make way for Monkfields,[16] the next development and Phase 3 of Love's Farm.

It has local history collections covering the town's rich past including a display about James Toller, the Eynesbury Giant, a resident from the 18th century who measured over 8 ft in height.

There is also a gallery with temporary exhibitions by local creatives including fine art, ceramics, sculpture and illustration.

The museum organises a variety of specialist and family events from walks, talks, one-day festivals, temporary and touring exhibitions.

[19] Thee theatre community includes the Riverside Theatre Company,[20] who stage productions, run workshops and have groups for all ages; VAMPS formed in 1961 as the St Neots and District Operatic Society and stage popular musicals and variety shows;[21] St Neots Players,[22] formed in the late 1920s as a play-reading group with past members who used to perform the annual Shakespeare, Pantomime and other mid-season productions at the Kings Head Hotel in the Stables Theatre; and Stageworks,[23] a performing arts group offering classes, holiday programmes, workshops and a college offering full-time training to students aged 16 years and over that prepares students for musical theatre and acting, SJ School of Dance,[24] Pocket Productions,[25] and Peppercorns Academy.

St Neots' position as a traditional town location, with plentiful industrial sites and good transport facilities encourages this expansion.

[44][45] Riverside Park[46] is close to the town centre and covers 72 acres (29 ha) with a beautiful mile-long waterside frontage.

[51][52] To the north of the town is Paxton Pits Nature Reserve providing walks through its 190 acres (77 ha) of lakes, meadow, grassland, scrub and woodland.

The reserve is famous for its nightingales and cormorants and is home to a wide variety of other birds, insects, mammals and flora.

The Rowley Arts Centre was opened in May 2014 and includes a six-screen cinema operated by Cineworld and a complex with three restaurants and a gym.

[53] St Neots has a ten pin bowling centre with 16 lanes, which was built on part of the site of the outdoor swimming pool that closed in 2003.

In the 19th century, it was provided with a high quality set of stained glass windows depicting the life of Jesus Christ.

It is almost everything a good town church should be: a luxurious Perpendicular building with perhaps the finest tower in the county, faced in ironstone and pebbles with ashlar dressings – an agreeable contrast in colour and texture.

[61] St Neots railway station is served by generally half-hourly trains north to Peterborough and south to Horsham via London St Pancras and Gatwick Airport, with additional peak time commuter services in the mornings and evenings to and from London King's Cross.

Six miles to the north the A14 trunk road provides westward and eastward access to the Midlands and East Anglia respectively.

The A45 road between Bedford and Cambridge passed through the town centre until the 3-mile (4.8 km) St Neots Bypass opened in December 1985 (subsequently re-designated as the A428).

There is major scheme for a new road connecting the Black Cat roundabout and the A428 at Caxton Gibbet, avoiding St Neots completely.

[66] St Neots is served by the Stagecoach 905 service which operates between Bedford Bus Station and Cambridge Parkside on a typically half-hourly basis.

The Great Ouse is a mature river, once wide and shallow but now controlled by weirs and sluices and usually constrained in a well-defined channel.

Riverside Park, an amenity adjacent to St Neots Bridge, remains set aside as a flood-meadow, subject to flood, protecting dwellings and commercial property from a swollen reach.

[73] Eastern areas of the United Kingdom, such as East Anglia, are drier, cooler, less windy and also experience the greatest daily and seasonal temperature variations.

Protected from the cool onshore coastal breezes, Cambridgeshire is warm in summer and cold and frosty in winter.

Winifred Crossley Fair, aviator and one of the First Eight women pilots to join the Air Transport Auxiliary in 1940 during the Second World War, was the first woman to fly a Hurricane fighter.

[77] Multiple World short course swimming champion Mark Foster lives in St Neots.