In 1870-72, John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described Soham like this:
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.
Soham through time
Soham is now part of East Cambridgeshire district. Click here for graphs and data of how East Cambridgeshire has changed over two centuries. For statistics about Soham itself, go to Units and Statistics.
GB Historical GIS / University of Portsmouth, History of Soham in East Cambridgeshire | Map and description, A Vision of Britain through Time.
URL: https://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/5091
Date accessed: 23rd April 2024
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