Reach farm workers (MoC77/75)

Reach Data

Reach data

CAS Vol CXIV 2025 has an article by Michael Chisholm which reviews the early history of Reach. It notes that the early history of Reach is not well understood and their are confusing accounts. Evidence that a Roman canal joined Reach to the Cam is lacking. Also there is evidence of planned development of the area from 970 AD.

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Rev W A St John Dearsley was curate in charge from 1899-1913 and organised several clubs in the village including cricket clubs for boys and girls.

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4 December 1952

The villagers of Reach want their village to remain a village in its own right. They do not want to become part of Swaffham Prior. Strictly speaking Reach has never been a village in its own right – part of it lying within the parish of Burwell and part in Swaffham Prior, now an Inquiry is trying to sort the matter out. They concede that the present set-up is unsatisfactory but feel the answer is to make Reach a parish of its own. Credit: Mike Petty, Burwell Scrapbook 1897 to 1990, 1952 12 04.

5 April 1954

The ‘birth’ of the Parish of Reach was marked by a ceremony in the schoolroom when the Chairman of the County Council formally handed over to the new Chairman of the Parish Council (Mr A. Housden) a copy of the Statutory Order and a minute book. The people of Reach felt they had lost their identity by being swallowed up by Burwell and Swaffham and recognised that a small unit of local government, if it adopted a method of ‘give and take’, could be a benefit to everyone concerned. There were no worse quarrels than those which took place over neighbouring walls and it was the spirit of forgiving neighbours which was so necessary to make life enduring in Reach. Credit: Mike Petty, Burwell Scrapbook 1897 to 1990, 1954 04 05.