Rougham (St. Mary)

ROUGHAM (St. Mary), a parish, in the union of Thingoe, hundred of Thedwastry, W. division of Suffolk, 4¼ miles (E. S. E.) from Bury St. Edmund's; containing 969 inhabitants, and comprising 3907a. 2r. 21p. Rougham is a beautiful sylvan hamlet, lying a short distance south of the high road from Bury to Ipswich, through Woolpit. The living is a rectory, valued in the king's books at £23. 18. 6½.; net income, £756; patron, Philip Bennet, Esq. Edward Sparke, in 1720, bequeathed land now producing about £40 a year, to be applied in support of a school; and there are several other bequests, the principal of which is that of Roger Kedington, in 1702, for apprenticing children with a premium of £30 each. The parish was the residence, for many generations, of a branch of the family of Knight, of Drury. Some tumuli were opened here in 1843.