page_title: Elm, Cambridgeshire
section_title: Modern period
hierarchical_section_title: Elm, Cambridgeshire / History / Modern period
caption_attribution_description: English: The Limes. 18th Century farmhouse in Elm, Cambridgeshire
context_page_description: Elm is a village and civil parish in the Fenland District of Cambridgeshire, England.
  The parish at the northeast is at the county boundary with Norfolk, and at the northwest, market town of Wisbech. The northern part of Elm village, at Elm Low Road, acts as a suburb of Wisbech.
  The civil parish had a resident population of 3,295, as recorded during the 2001 United Kingdom census. The population including Coldham, Collett's Bridge, Friday Bridge and Ring's End was 3,962 at the 2011 Census.
context_section_description: However, the lower lying parts of the parish were probably not fully drained and reclaimed until as recently as between the 17th and 19th Centuries. Later satellite settlements formed to the south of the parish at Friday Bridge and at Coldham, alongside the Leam, where land was better drained.
  Elm, or Elme, once had a stop on the Wisbech and Upwell Tramway, known as Elmbridge as it was just over the border in Norfolk near to a bridge that spanned the former Wisbech Canal. This canal connected the River Nene at Wisbech, to a junction with the Well Creek and the Old River Nene at Outwell, and passed along the northern edge of Elm.
  The canal was abandoned, and finally filled in during the 1970s. Parts of it have been converted into a public green lane that starts at the post office, and terminates at the site of Collets Bridge. The tramway that ran alongside the canal was in turn closed to passengers from 1927. It discontinued as a line in 1966.
  Besides allotments and market-gardening, a number of apple, pear, and plum orchards have been planted on the better drained soils close to the village centre in the north of the parish, while the lower laying peat soils further out, are cultivated as high grade arable land. The orchards (some of which have since been replaced by new housing developments) used to attract fruit pickers from London on working holidays. After the Second World War, many of these seasonal visitors would stay at a disused POW camp at Friday Bridge. The camp today is used mainly by seasonal agricultural workers including some from abroad.
  A stream, known as The Leam, once flowed from March to Wisbech, past the church, and through the village. This stream has now been drained away, and only survives today as a pond to the south of Elm, at Friday Bridge. In 2018, Elm parish council ordered the removal of bulrushes from the pond.
caption: The Limes, 18th-century farmhouse in Elm, Cambridgeshire
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