Extract from
'Magna Britannia - Cambridgeshire' by Daniel & Samuel Lysons,
first published 1808.

UPWELL, in the hundred of Wisbech, and deanery of Fincham, in the diocese of Norwich, lies partly in Cambridgeshire, and partly in Norfolk : as the church, the Hamlet of Welney, and the greater part of the parish, are in Norfolk, it will be more particularly treated of under that county ¶. In the Cambridgeshire part of the parish are the sites of two ancient monasteries : one of these having been known by the names of Welle, Mirmaud or Marmaud, was a small priory of Gilbertines founded in the reign of Richard I., or in that of King John, by Ralph de Hauville, as a cell to the priory of Semperingham, in Lincolnshire; it was valued in 1534 at 10 l. 7 s. 7 d. clear yearly income. The estate belonging to this priory, now known by the name of Orman's farm, was granted, by Queen Elizabeth, to Perceval Bowes, and John Mosyer : it is now the property of Mr. Bacon, by purchase from the Audleys of Lynne, in whose possession it had been for many years : there are no remains of the conventual buildings.

Little more is known of the priory of Thirling, than that such a religious house existed in the year 1528. Lands, called Thirlings, and an old mansion in the village of Upwell, which bears the appearance of having been a religious house, are now the property of Sir ----- L'Estrange.

Richard Greaves Townley, Esq., is lord of the manor of Upwell, by inheritance from the families of Bell and Beaupré, and is patron of the vicarage.

It appears, by the returns made under the act of parliament for ascertaining the population of this kingdom in 1801, that there were 153 houses in Upwell, of which 150 were inhabited ; the total number of inhabitants, is stated to be 830, living as 153 families.

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