This Trust resulted from the merger under the 1882 Charity Commission Scheme of the Robert Langley Charity and the Hemingford Workhouse Charity. By his Will of 1656 Robert Langley of St Ives charged his land in the Delphs near Haddenham Ely with an annual rent charge of one pound five shillings to be distributed as one pound for the widows and poor of Hemingford Grey, and five shillings for the ringers of the bells of Hemingford Grey Church in memory of his father. The rent charge was later commuted and the proceeds invested.
By Deed of 1778 a house outbuilding and land in High Street Hemingford Grey was sold to trustees, one of whom was the Vicar, the Reverend Dr Charles Dickens, to be used as “a Workhouse for the lodging and employ in the Poor of the Parish of Hemingford Grey”. This was the Workhouse Charity. By 1863 the property was said to have consisted of six cottages which over time became unfit for habitation and were demolished. A new house, number 35 High Street, was built with a loan of £170 on part of the site in 1911. That house, let until the last occupier vacated in 1979, was subsequently sold.
Half the proceeds were used towards the refurbishment of the village Reading Room and the balance and the other funds invested to provide grants from the income to villagers in need. The Reading Room had been built in 1898 on part of the Workhouse Charity land leased for 99 years to the original Reading Room trustees of whom photo portraits are displayed in the Room. Under a separate 1982 Scheme the Reading Room Charity was re-established. Since then the renovated and extended Room has been used as a village hall by a Management Committee consisting of Parish Council and other user body appointees, holding over the same terms as the original lease and paying nominal rent to the trustees of the merged Langley and Workhouse Charity whose name has been changed to The Langley Trust.