page_title: Fordham, Cambridgeshire
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Fordham, Cambridgeshire / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Signpost in Fordham, Cambridgeshire
context_page_description: Fordham is a village in rural Cambridgeshire, England. Fordham is part of the East Cambridgeshire district. It is four miles north of Newmarket, as well as being close to the settlements of Soham, Burwell, Isleham, Mildenhall and Chippenham.
context_section_description: The parish of Fordham covers 4,331 acres (1,753 ha) in an irregular shape. Its southern border is the county border with Suffolk and most of its south-eastern border with Snailwell follows the path of the River Snail. It also borders Chippenham and Isleham to the east, Soham to the north, and Burwell to the west, as well as having a short boundary with Wicken at its western tip. In 1953 the civil parish was merged with that of Landwade, a tiny parish of only 147 acres (59 ha), although Landwade and its ecclesiastical parish are both in Suffolk.
  The parish has been occupied for several thousand years; weapons and tools in both flint and metal have been found from the Early Bronze Age and Iron Age, as well as pottery and burials. Wall plaster and tiles have been found from the Roman era, indicating that villas may have been sited near to Biggin and Block Farms in the 2nd to 4th centuries A.D.
  In the Middle Ages the village was home to Fordham Priory, a Gilbertine priory and cell to Sempringham Priory, that was founded in the reign of Henry III in the 13th century by Robert de Fordham. Fordham Abbey, a Grade II* listed Georgian manor house was built on the site of the Priory in the eighteenth century.
  Fordham had a railway station serving as a junction the Cambridge to Mildenhall railway and the Ipswich to Ely line that opened to the west of the village in 1879.  The station finally closed in 1966.
  Though spelled Fordeham in the Domesday Book of 1086, the village's spelling has remained unchanged since the 10th century. The name "Fordham" means "homestead or enclosure by a ford".
  Fordham War Memorial commemorates the village's dead from the two world wars. It was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and originally featured a bronze statue of St George by Sir George Frampton. The memorial was destroyed and the bronze stolen in 1991 and the community raised funds to rebuild it and replace the bronze with a fibreglass replica. It is a Grade II listed building.
caption: Signpost in Fordham
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