Cheveley (St. Mary)

CHEVELEY (St. Mary), a parish, in the union of Newmarket, hundred of Cheveley, county of Cambridge, 3 miles (E. S. E.) from Newmarket; containing 645 inhabitants, and comprising by measurement 2526 acres. An act for inclosing lands was passed in 1841: stone is quarried for the roads. The living is a rectory, valued in the king's books at £16. 8. 1½., and in the gift of the Rev. James Thomas Bennet: the tithes have been commuted for £704, and the glebe contains 27 acres of fertile land, with a glebe-house. The church is a cruciform structure, with a central tower supported by arches and containing five bells; it has a very beautiful oak screen, and some curious old monuments to the family of Folkes. A school was endowed with an estate by John Ray, by will dated 1558, and in 1709 Lord Dovor added other land; the former is let for £60 a year, and the latter produces £20. In Cheveley Park is an old castle, surrounded by a fosse. A very remarkable fossil tooth or tusk was found in a gravel-pit a few years ago, six feet in length, with a curvature nearly circular; it is now in the museum at York.