Cavenham is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

Suffolk Suffolk ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Norfolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Essex to the south, and Cambridgeshire to the west. Ipswich is the largest settlement and the county ...

, England, northwest of

Bury St Edmunds Bury St Edmunds (), commonly referred to locally as ''Bury,'' is a cathedral as well as market town and civil parish in the West Suffolk District, West Suffolk district, in the county of Suffolk, England.OS Explorer map 211: Bury St. Edmunds an ...

. It is in the

local government district Local may refer to: Geography and transportation * Local (train), a train serving local traffic demand * Local, Missouri, a community in the United States Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Local'' (comics), a limited series comic book by Bria ...

West Suffolk West Suffolk may refer to the following places in Suffolk, England: * West Suffolk (county), a county until 1974 * West Suffolk District, a local government district established in 2019 * West Suffolk (UK Parliament constituency), an electoral di ...

, and the

electoral ward A ward is a local authority area, typically used for electoral purposes. In some countries, wards are usually named after neighbourhoods, thoroughfares, parishes, landmarks, geographical features and in some cases historical figures connected t ...

of Manor. At the 2021 UK census, Cavenham Parish had a population of 141. In the 1870s it had a population of 229. The parish includes Cavenham Heath, a

Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain, or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland, is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle ...

(SSSI) with a sand and gravel

quarry A quarry is a type of open-pit mining, open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock (geology), rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some juri ...

close to it and is the location of the Black Ditches, an Anglo-Saxon boundary ditch which is believed to be the most easterly of a series of early Anglo-Saxon defensive earthworks built across the

Icknield Way The Icknield Way is an ancient trackway in southern and eastern England that runs from Norfolk to Wiltshire. It follows the chalk escarpment that includes the Berkshire Downs and Chiltern Hills. Background It is generally said to be, withi ...

. Part of this also forms an SSSI to the south-east of the village.

Toponymy

Toponymists Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of '' toponyms'' (proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage, and types. ''Toponym'' is the general term for a proper nam ...

Keith Briggs and Kelly Kilpatrick say Cavenham means a man called Cafa once owned a homestead here. They provide a number of different spellings following

Domesday Book Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

before it became stabilised as Cavenham. They also say Cafan has the genitive suffix meaning 'of Cafa'. The surname of canham originates from the name cavenham, all persons with the surname canham have their origins here at Cavenham

Notable residents

* Thomas Le Blanc (1774-1843), lawyer and academic, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge from 1824 to 1825. * Adolphe Goldschmidt (1838-1918), German businessman and art collector, created an estate of 2,500 acres at Cavenham in the late 19th century.

References

Villages in Suffolk Forest Heath Civil parishes in Suffolk {{Suffolk-geo-stub