MARCH, a market-town and chapelry in the parish
of DODDINGTON, northern division of the hundred of
WITCHFORD, Isle of ELY, county of CAMBRIDGE, 31
miles (N. by W.) from Cambridge, and 80 (N.) from
London, containing 3850 inhabitants. The town is situated
on the banks of the navigable river Neue, by
means of which corn, and the local horticultural produce,
are conveyed to Cambridge, Lynn, Peterborough,
and other places. The market, granted to Sir Alexander
Peyton, in 1671, is on Friday, chiefly for butchers
meat; and there are two fairs, each of which continues
three days, commencing on the Monday before Whitsuntide,
and on the second Tuesday in October: at the
first of these, horses ore sold only on the third day.
Manorial courts are held in the guildhall, a modern and
commodious edifice situated in the High-street; and
this place is within the jurisdiction of a court of requests,
for the recovery of debts under 40a. throughout the Isle
of Ely, established by act of parliament passed in the
18th of George III., held here once a month. The
chapel, which is dedicated to St.Wendreda, is a very
ancient structure, with a spire at the west end; it was
erected about the year 1343, at which period an indulgence
was granted by the Pope to all who should contribute
to it; in the interior are several ancient monuments.
A school was founded, in 1696, by William
Neale, Esq., for the education of eight boys in Latin
and English, and endowed with thirty-three acres and
a half of land in Whites Fen, upon the special condition
that the land should never be broken up, unless
overgrown with rushes, and in that case it was to be
once cropped with oats, and again laid down as greensward;
a forfeiture of the property to the heirs of the
donor to be the penalty of infringing this condition. Mr.
Henry Wade having bequeathed a house and lands for
charitable purposes, the rents were appropriated, under a
decree obtained in the court of Chancery in 1713, in *ne
following manner: £20 per annum to a schoolmaster, for
the instruction of twenty poor children of March; £20
per annum for apprentice fees; £ 5 per annum for decayed
housekeepers; and the residue in the purchase
of heifers, on Easter Monday, for poor housekeepers;
the schoolmaster on Neale's foundation receives the
above-mentioned salary, and the further sum of £6.15.,
arising from land devised, in 1653, by Mr. James Sheppard,
and the interest of £30, the gift of Mr. Gabriel
Sheppard, for the instruction of children. There ure
some unendowed alnishouses for the parochial poor.
Between this town and Wisbeach, in the year 1730,
urns enclosing burnt bones, and a vessel containing one
hundred and sixty Roman denarii of different emperors,
were discovered.