Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for SOHAM

SOHAM, a small town, a parish, and a sub-district, in Newmarket district, Cambridge. The town stands on the Lode navigation, 5½ miles SSE of Ely r. station; had a monastery founded in 630 by St. Felix, and destroyed in 870 by the Danes; was the seat of a diocese during all the period of the monastery; is now a seat of county courts; presents a long, straggling, and irregular appearance, much improved by the recent erection of several handsome houses; and has a head post-office,‡ a banking office, a good chief inn, a church, five dissenting chapels, an endowed school with £60 a year, a national school for girls, alms houses with £33 a year, other charities £554, a weekly market on Saturday, and a cattle fair on 9 May. The church exhibits characters from Norman to later English, is cruciform, and has an embattled tower.—The parish comprises 12,706 acres. Real property, £28,635. Pop. in 1851, 4,706; in 1861, 4,278. Houses, 980. A large mere or lake was formerly here, but has been drained. About 10,000 acres are free land, now well-drained, and worked into a state of high cultivation. Orchards and gardens occupy much ground, and send large produce to London, Liverpool, Norwich, and Newcastle. The living is a vicarage, with Barway chapelry, in the diocese of Ely. Value, £1,654.* Patron, Pembroke College, Cambridge.—The sub-district contains 5 parishes, and comprises 29,984 acres. Pop., 9,400. Houses, 2,137.


(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a small town, a parish, and a sub-district"   (ADL Feature Type: "cities")
Administrative units: Soham AP/CP       Soham SubD       Newmarket RegD/PLU       Cambridgeshire AncC
Place: Soham

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