Swavesey (St. Andrew)

SWAVESEY (St. Andrew), a parish, in the union of St. Ives, hundred of Papworth, county of Cambridge, 5¼ miles (E. S. E.) from St. Ives; containing 1273 inhabitants. This parish is bounded on the north and north-west by the river Ouse, and on the south by the Huntingdon and Cambridge road. It comprises 3891a. 2r. 20p., including 1089 acres of common or waste land, now inclosed. A market and a fair were granted in 1243 to the family of Zouch, whose castle stood about half a mile south-west from the church. The living is a vicarage, valued in the king's books at £7. 6. 8.; patrons, the Master and Fellows of Jesus College, Cambridge; appropriator, the Bishop of Ely. The great tithes have been commuted for £750, and the vicarial for £265; the appropriate glebe contains 72 acres. The church belonged to a priory of Black monks founded here, soon after the Conquest, as a cell to the abbey of St. Sergius and Bachus, and St. Briocus, at Angiers: the priory was given by Richard II. to the monks of St. Anne, Coventry. Some slight remains of the conventual buildings are still visible. There is a place of worship for Baptists.