Ickleton (St. Mary Magdalene)

ICKLETON (St. Mary Magdalene), a parish, in the union of Linton, hundred of Whittlesford, county of Cambridge, 5 miles (N. N. W.) from Saffron-Walden; containing 700 inhabitants. This place was the seat of a Benedictine nunnery, founded in the reign of Henry II., to the prioress of which a weekly market and an annual fair were granted by Henry III.; the market has long been discontinued, but the fair is still held on the 22nd of July: the convent flourished till the Dissolution, when its revenue was returned at £80. 1. 10. The parish is partly bounded by a branch of the river Cam, which separates it from the county of Essex; and comprises by computation 2700 acres, whereof 150 are pasture, and the remainder arable. Its soil, resting chiefly on chalk, in some places alternated with clay, is for the far greater part thin and poor. The living is a vicarage, valued in the king's books at £8. 6. 8.; net income, £114; patron, the Bishop of Ely; appropriators, the Dean and Canons of Windsor. The tithes were commuted for land and a money payment in 1810. The church, supposed to have been built before the Conquest, contains 400 sittings.