Pages 227-228
A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely: Volume 10, Cheveley, Flendish, Staine and Staploe Hundreds (North-Eastern Cambridgeshire). Originally published by Victoria County History, London, 2002.
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LOCAL GOVERNMENT.
In 1279 Walden abbey (Essex), which, probably before 1230, had been granted in free alms lordship over a few tenements at Reach, claimed view of frankpledge there. (fn. 1) By the 1380s, too, view of frankpledge at Reach supposedly belonged to a manor in Exning (Suff.), once held by the Valence earls of Pembroke, (fn. 2) which was attached by 1440 to the Cottons' Landwade manor. (fn. 3) Leet jurisdic tion over Reach, described in 1279 as a hamlet of Swaffham Prior, (fn. 4) belonged primarily, however, to Ely priory's court in that vill. (fn. 5) From the 14th century that court occasionally appointed to serve specifically for Reach one of two or three aletasters; (fn. 6) by the 16th it also named for Reach a constable, (fn. 7) and c. 1610 a fenreeve. (fn. 8) Ramsey abbey's Burwell court, which had also taken presentments from aletasters for Reach in 1312 and 1429, (fn. 9) later mostly confined its infrequent interventions there to tenurial and agrarian matters. (fn. 10)
A parish council was established early in 1954, when Reach was constituted a separate parish, following local preference for separation from Swaffham Prior. (fn. 11)