Editing Ickleton (section)

==Priory, weekly market and annual fair==
[[File:Abbey Farm - geograph.org.uk - 792630.jpg|thumb|Abbey Farm, said to be on the site of [[Ickleton Priory]]]]
{{main|Ickleton Priory}}
[[Ickleton Priory]] was a small house of [[Order of Saint Benedict|Benedictine]] [[nun]]s, founded in the mid-12th century.<ref name=VCH/> It existed certainly by 1181 and may have been founded in or before 1163.<ref name=Salzman>{{harvnb|Salzman|1948|pp=223–226}}</ref> The priory was dedicated to St [[Mary Magdalene]].<ref name=Salzman/> The priory was neither large nor wealthy, but it became Ickleton's principal manor and dominated the life of the parish.<ref name=VCH/> By 1536 it held {{convert|714|acre}} of the cultivated land in the parish, but in that year the priory was suppressed in the [[Dissolution of the Monasteries]] and the last [[Prior (ecclesiastical)|prior]]ess was pensioned off by the Crown.<ref name=VCH/>

A charter issued under [[Henry III of England|Henry III]] between 1222 and 1227 granted the prioress the right to hold at Ickleton a weekly market, an annual fair<ref name=VCH/><ref name=Salzman/> and a [[court leet]].<ref name=Salzman/> The charter may have been in confirmation of an earlier one that the priory claimed was granted by King Stephen.<ref name=VCH/> The market was every Thursday and the annual fair was on the feast of St Mary Magdalene,<ref name=Salzman/> 22 July.<ref name=VCH/>

The annual fair survived the priory's suppression. In the latter part of the 16th century it was still being held in the former priory's barnyard, still took place around the feast day of St Mary Magdalene, and lasted five days.<ref name=VCH/> In the 18th and early 19th century it was a one-day event on the feast day itself, trading mainly in horses and cheese.<ref name=VCH/> In 1872 the fair was owned by the farmer of Abbey Farm when the [[Home Secretary]], [[Henry Bruce, 1st Baron Aberdare|Henry Bruce]], abolished Ickleton Fair under the [[Fairs Act 1871]].<ref name=VCH/>