Pages 56-57
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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CHARITIES FOR THE POOR.
Houses and land were left for the poor of Cheveley under the wills of William Reeve and John Raye, dated 1553 and 1558 respectively. By 1837 the houses had long been demolished, and after inclosure in 1844 the land covered 10 a. In the 1720s it produced £1 2s. 6d. a year and was spent on supporting one family on permanent relief. The income was £7 in the 1750s and rose steadily to £28 10s. in the 1870s. Probably after 1756 it was distributed in coal or cash among the settled poor not on permanent parish relief, according to the number of children in their families. (fn. 1) The income stagnated after the agricultural depression of the 1870s and fell sharply in real terms after the land was sold in 1927, (fn. 2) so that in the 1970s only £40 a year was available, distributed among old people. (fn. 3)