This was a new seat created in the 1995 boundary changes. It was formed from the northern half of Huntingdon constituency and four wards south of the Nene from Sir Brian Mawhinney's previous seat, Peterborough. This is a prosperous region, bolstered by the construction of many private housing estates. Most employment is in managerial positions and there are many wealthy arable farmers. Although the City of Peterborough itself is a separate constituency, many of the city's western suburbs fall within the Cambridgeshire North West seat. It is here in areas like Fletton and Orton Longueville that pockets of Labour support can be found in an area otherwise steadily blue. Sir Brian Mawhinney, who was first elected to Parliament in 1979, is stepping down at the election. The constituency contains the village of Stilton to where the eponymous cheese was brought from Leicestershire and then loaded on to stage coaches heading to London. There is still an annual cheese-rolling competition in May each year. In the larger village of Warboys, on the edge of the fens between St Ives and Ramsey, three women were hanged in 1593 after being found guilty of witchcraft at Huntingdon Assizes. There was a famous Abbey in Ramsey which was founded on a marsh-surrounded island in 969 at roughly the same time as that of the second foundation of Ely. Ramsey's Abbey became one of the most important monastic houses in the 12th and 13th Centuries - it then had some 80 monks. Even when Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries in 1539 there were 34 monks.
