The Great North Road crossed the River Nene here by Wansford Old Bridge, now a Grade I listed building. The stone bridge replaced a wooden bridge with eight arches damaged by floods in 1571. The Great North Road was diverted to the east and the 1920s concrete brdge is itself Grade II*; it now carries the northbound carriageway of the A1. Wansford is under two parish councils. Wansford Parish Council, within the area of Peterborough City Council, comprises the village north of, and including, the Old Bridge. The village to the south of Wansford Old Bridge is represented by Sibson-cum-Stibbington Parish Council and comes under Huntingdonshire District Council. Wansford station is in Stibbington parish. There is a GP surgery, on Yarwell Road, to the north of the river. The village has a small post office store, a hairdressers and a private dental surgery. A new cafe bistro, The Wansford Lounge opened in 2017. It was split between two counties until 1965 when it came under one authority,. The boundary post between the Soke of Peterborough in Northamptonshire and Huntingdonshire is still there halfway across the bridge. On 2 May 2007 the helicopter of Phillip Carter, entrepreneur and owner of the Haycock Hotel, was found, crashed nearby in woods at Kings Cliffe.
"Wansford-in-England"
According to local folklore, related in Defoe's A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain, the name Wansford-in-England comes from the tale of a local man who fell asleep on a hayrick and upon awakening found himself floating down the River Nene towards the sea. He asked a traveller on the riverbank where he was, and upon hearing the reply "Wansford", asked, "Wansford in England?". The name stuck and the Haycock Hotel takes its name from the legend. This version of the story seems to be derived by oral transmission from "Barnabæ Itinerarium, or Barnabee's Journal", an account of four long and often drunken journeys north through England published by Richard Brathwait in 1638 and reprinted in 1820, with extensive notes, by Joseph Haslewood. The hero, Barnaby, was allegedly born in Appleby-in-Westmorland, and his surname may have been Harrington. The poem is written in elegant Latin verse with a parallel translation into English doggerel. The references to Wansford are in the third journey, after Barnaby has visited Stilton and before he heads north to Stamford. As the second verse shows, he arrived when Wansford had been hit by the plague and the doors were marked with warnings.
