Fordham: Economic history

ECONOMIC HISTORY.

In 1066 just over half the ten hides in Fordham had belonged to the royal demesne manor, which rendered £10 by tale, by 1086 blanch, besides a three-day food farm of wheat, malt, and honey. That farm had been converted to a cash payment of £13 8s. 4d. by 1086, when the manor's ten ploughlands, six in demesne, were worked by six villani and 15 bordars, with four ploughteams; the demesne had only two teams, with one servus. On the rest of the vill Count Alan's vassal Wihomarc had at most one ploughland in demesne. The three sokemen of 1066 were probably represented by three sokemen or villani, apparently with one team each. (fn. 1)

The size of the demesne of the royal manor, at least briefly in hand in 1173, (fn. 2) was apparently reduced by the 13th century: of the two manors into which it was divided by 1200, (fn. 3) one included 196 a. of demesne arable c. 1300, (fn. 4) but only 120- 40 a. later in the 14th century, (fn. 5) when the other had just 70-80 a. (fn. 6) In the 17th century many of Christ's College's strips belonging to Coggeshall manor adjoined those of Trinity Hall's Feltons demesne, suggesting that those manors' openfield blocks had been physically divided. (fn. 7)

Of c. 1,000 a. of tenanted fieldland reported under Fordham in 1279, only a quarter was then held fully in villeinage, including six half yardlands of 15-18 a. The half yardlanders were not heavily burdened, owing mainly rents and reaping duties, besides threshing and carrying services; one had also to plough 27 a. yearly. Villeins with lesser holdings of 2-3 a. owed in labour only reaping, like the 28 'coterells', also obliged to thresh, on the larger Crown manor; among them were twenty with 6 a. each. That manor's tenants also included six sokemen, with 80 a. altogether, perhaps personally free, two holding 20 a., the rest 7-11 a., each, who likewise had to reap, perhaps relics of an earlier manorial regime. The priory's seven villeins, holding merely 10 a. with their dwellings, had only to reap, mow, and dig turf for a day, while its ten cottagers owed reaping and hay-making. There were then no villeins on the Richmond fee, all of its 260 a., partly held of Richmond manors in adjoining parishes, being freehold. (fn. 8) By 1290 the smaller, once royal, manor that became Coggeshalls had only 57 works due, apart from harvest services sufficient to reap 74 a. of demesne crops and carry the corn in one day, while only cottagers' works were reported in 1332. (fn. 9) On the other manor, later Feltons, customary works were only valued in cash in the 14th century. (fn. 10) In the 15th century former customary tenures were treated as rent-paying copyholds. (fn. 11) Much land in Fordham's northwestern fields had belonged from the 13th century to the demesne and tenants, both free and customary, of the Soham Duchy manor. Its customary tenants in Fordham, numbering c. 15 in the 14th century, had their labour services commuted by the 1390s, when the Fordham part of its demesne was leased out. (fn. 12) On Bassingbourns manor the demesne was at farm by 1440. (fn. 13) Tenants on that manor, where widows were excused paying heriots, might inherit and entail their holdings by the 1450s. (fn. 14)

Bassingbourns manor had no demesne in 1279, but built one up subsequently, as Fordham priory had earlier by gift and purchase, in the late 13th and the 14th centuries. (fn. 15) Its later demesne probably derived in part from the substantial freeholds reported in 1279, often with their own under-tenants. One such tenement, whose owner settled 70 a. in 1278 and who was still in 1279 lord of eight free tenants, had provided 90 a. of the priory estate. (fn. 16) Of two other such holdings then of 60-70 a., one apparently passed c. 1296 from the Clerbeks to the Wiggenhalls. (fn. 17) Of c. 540 a. of non-manorial freehold in 1279, over 400 a. belonged to eighteen men with 10 a. or more, including five with over 30 a. Another forty house-holding freeholders with 5 a. or less, including fifteen with c. 1 a. each, possessed barely 67 a. between them. (fn. 18)

It was probably those lesser freeholders who depended most on Fordham's position on the fen edge, which provided extensive common pastures in the north-west of the parish to complement the open fields that occupied its east and south. By the 14th century, (fn. 19) and until the 1810s, (fn. 20) Fordham had effectively two groupings of open fields: a possibly older one lay in its south and east, while another, perhaps later, group with smaller fields developed west of the village. Three large fields, altogether c. 1,660 a., lay east and south of the village: Barrow field, so named from 1410, (fn. 21) lying north-east towards Isleham, covered c. 550 a. To its south the 615 a. of Church field, usually so named c. 1380- 1550, (fn. 22) but renamed by the 1550s (fn. 23) as until the late 18th century Kenninghall field, (fn. 24) and styled by the 1790s Chippenham field, (fn. 25) occupied the south-east quadrant. Westward beyond a belt of grassland and Fordham priory's inclosures, lay the third field, covering c. 485 a. It was mostly called c. 1400, as until the 1630s, Budgate or Butgate field. (fn. 26) Part, perhaps in the north near 'Biggen' priory's buildings, was already known by 1400 as Biggen field, (fn. 27) a name used for the whole field from the mid 17th century. (fn. 28)

Further west, close to the north-western boundary, lay on relatively drier ground the Hales field covering, 1656 × 1670, c. 260 a. of arable. A narrow strip probably of common, called by the 1540s Fordham Frith, (fn. 29) divided that field into Fordham Hales to the east, then c. 175 a., and another 80 a. to the west called Burwell Hales, a name recorded from the 1390s, (fn. 30) but renamed Block field by 1780 after the adjoining Block close and farm. (fn. 31) Further north, beyond the roads to Soham, were the 206-15 a. that lay within Fordham parish of Clipsall field, a name in use from the 13th century, when some land in it was already kept as permanent grass. (fn. 32) Some land nominally within that field which was used as meadow or inclosed pasture, probably in the 15th century, certainly after 1500, (fn. 33) probably lay along its eastern edge; c. 100 a. there in 1656 and 60 a. c. 1800 were effectively held as several closes. About 1670 c. 75 a. of that field's 143 a. of arable strips (local measure) in Fordham were owned by c. 30 men, apparently mostly from Soham, who also had 100 a. of the Hales, but little or no land elsewhere in Fordham. Fordham's own manorial demesnes had only 4½ a. in Clipsall field, and barely 15 a. in the Hales. (fn. 34) Those fields may have been Fordham's share of a field-system linked to the adjoining one lying along Soham's southern border. The open arable in Clipsall field at least presumably shared its rotations with the Soham part of that field.

Besides the open fields, subject to a triennial rotation by the 1320s, (fn. 35) Fordham had other arable in crofts, mostly divided internally into separately owned strips. (fn. 36) Surrounding the village to east, north, and west, they comprised c. 95 a. c. 1810. (fn. 37) About 1210 Fordham priory had been granted land in one man's field called 'Halldam croft', perhaps to the south where the Abbey crofts later lay. (fn. 38) Other crofts mentioned in the 13th century included Calvescroft, Oxcroft, Toliscroft, and Goosecroft, (fn. 39) recorded until c. 1780. (fn. 40) Crofts lying by the mid 15th century near Market Street (fn. 41) probably became the Carter Street crofts of 1656, (fn. 42) covering 25-35 a., between those two streets. Hurts crofts, (24 a. in 1656, later 12 a.), (fn. 43) lay to their south-east. West of Market Street were Holders crofts, 40 a. in 1656, and beyond them the West Fen crofts, then covering 34 a., recorded c. 1550-1800. (fn. 44) At the village's east end Church croft, mentioned by 1400, covered 9½ a. south of the church. (fn. 45) To its north, probably west of the Isleham road running past Fordham moor, the Moor Street crofts, recorded into the 1530s, contained one 10-a. block in 1452. (fn. 46) The crofts west of the Isleham road covered 30 a. c. 1800. Beyond them to the north lay a group of several closes, 22 a. belonging to Bassingbourns manor, mostly with curving borders, perhaps medieval intakes from the moor to the north. (fn. 47) East of the river and north of the village street lay Wildcroft, recorded from the late 14th century to the 18th and covering 48 a. in 1656. (fn. 48) By 1800 Fordham's crofts, then called 'every year land', were probably being cropped continuously. (fn. 49) Wildcroft also included meadow by 1610, and parts of other crofts had by the late 17th century been converted to pasture. (fn. 50) Although c. 1670 some crofts had been formally grouped with adjoining open fields, Church croft for instance with Kenninghall field, (fn. 51) they were effectively held in severalty, and at inclosure were accordingly directed to be allotted to their existing owners. (fn. 52)

From the 13th century Fordham's commons and pastures had fallen into three sections. (fn. 53) South of the village the narrow South fen, adjoining Biggen field in 1545, (fn. 54) stretched along the river. The priory, whose crofts lay to its west, had already by 1279 inclosed 10 a. of that fen. (fn. 55) Although South fen was still reckoned as commonable in the early 18th century, (fn. 56) the Russells had made inclosures there in the 17th: by 1800 the Abbey estate, once theirs, included 35 a. of closes between the river and Biggen field. (fn. 57) To their north-east lay the Blackland, c. 27 a., so named from c. 1320 (fn. 58) until c. 1800, (fn. 59) later called the Brackland. In the 17th century turf was dug and straw cut there. (fn. 60) Its northern part served as Lammas meadow until inclosure. (fn. 61) The riverside grassland was continued northward through the village closes by Mill meadow, 3 a., and Pool fen common, 7½ a., so named by 1534, north of the bridge. (fn. 62)

Much of Fordham's other more extensive fen commons west and north of the village was intercommonable with Soham until that parish's fens were inclosed in the 1660s. (fn. 63) In the 1340s some Fordham men, presumably not holding of Soham's Duchy manor, regularly paid its lord for the right to feed their beasts on that intercommon. (fn. 64) The Fordham Duchy tenants were still in the 1620s considered to be entitled to intercommon over the whole 560 a. ascribed to the Hales common in the west of the modern parish and the 432 a. of Fordham Moor in its north. (fn. 65)

In the 13th century Fordham's West fen, six furlongs each way, stretched from 'Nesdam' on the Burwell boundary to 'Hopperislane'. (fn. 66) That fen probably originally occupied most of Fordham's western projection and southwestern quadrant. (fn. 67) Much of its north-western portion, called Hales fen by 1422 and reckoned as 283 a. in 1618, was still in the 1650s intercommonable with Soham. When it was mostly inclosed in the 1660s, the Soham Duchy manor estate received c. 200 a., which were later represented by the 227-a. Block farm lying in Fordham's western projection. Another 27 a. at its west end had already in the 1630s gone to the Bedford Level Adventurers. (fn. 68) A small part of Hales fen left uninclosed south of Block field was apparently by 1820 renamed Block corner. (fn. 69) To the south-east watercourses draining west from the village into Burwell New River divided the Hales fen and fields from the larger fen to the south-west, not involved in the 17th-century inclosures, still called West Fen common in 1800 when it covered 422 a. That common was bounded eastward by a line of ancient closes west of Biggen field with the West Fen crofts at their northern end. Beyond those closes' southern end lay another 70 a. of old inclosures, attached by 1820 to the Cottons' Landwade estate. (fn. 70)

North of Fordham village the North fen, not intercommonable, in 1279 two furlongs long and one broad, extended north-eastwards towards the Isleham border. (fn. 71) It was possibly also called the Moor fen by the 1350s, and c. 1400 contained 'lakes' held in severalty, which might flood it. (fn. 72) Supposedly covering 232 a. in 1618, (fn. 73) it was partly represented c. 1800 by the 136-a. North fen west of Barrow field. West of North fen lay the intercommonable Fordham Moor, so called by 1316, which by the 1340s was separated from Clipsall meadow to its south-west by a deep, waterfilled dyke, (fn. 74) probably along the then course of the river Snail. In the 1660s Thomas Chicheley, then Soham's chief lord, had Fordham Moor divided, despite opposition from Fordham villagers. Though only allotted 90 a. in the Moor in 1665, (fn. 75) he had by the 1670s taken possession in severalty of all the half of the moor, supposedly 200-250 a., assigned to Soham. (fn. 76) Under an agreement of 1658 effected in 1665, Fordham's commoners nevertheless retained until inclosure as their share of the former intercommon the 189-a. Moor common. It was partly separated from their North fen by the 186 a. of closes, representing Chicheley's share, which became Moor farm in Fordham parish. (fn. 77)

In the 12th and 13th centuries Fordham's fields grew wheat, rye, barley, and oats. (fn. 78) Individual fields were designated from the 15th century to the 18th as the 'wheat field', (fn. 79) the 'rye field, (fn. 80) the 'barley field', (fn. 81) and the 'pease field'. (fn. 82) By the early 16th century villagers' wills most often, however, bequeathed barley. (fn. 83) The winter corn field was still expected to include rye c. 1660. (fn. 84) That traditional rotation of two crops and a fallow was still used in the 1790s. (fn. 85) By 1700 the titheable crops had also included turnips and coleseed. (fn. 86)

Parts of the commons were being dug for turf by 1200. Fordham priory was soon after granted rights of turbary. (fn. 87) Cutting rushes and digging turf were regulated by 1400, their sale outside Fordham being then and later forbidden. (fn. 88) About 1610 the moor was largely devoted to cutting turf. (fn. 89) But the fen commons' main use from the 13th century was as pasture. In 1210 over 120 people may have kept beasts there. (fn. 90) Fordham sometimes suffered encroachments on its commons from neighbouring villages, as in the 1390s, with up to 400 sheep. (fn. 91) About 1545 Fordham men were similarly encroaching, by cutting sedge and digging turf, on 60 a. of Snailwell's High fen adjoining Fordham's 'Hard grounds'. (fn. 92)

In the early 14th century Fordham sokemen and freeholders might have up to 12 sheep at a time stolen from their folds. (fn. 93) Locally owned flocks of 40, 60, and 200 were reported c. 1420. (fn. 94) In 1533, to prevent overcharging the commons, villagers were forbidden to feed more beasts there in summer than they could maintain throughout the year, while in 1536 they were barred from folding outsiders' sheep between Midsummer and Lady Day. (fn. 95) By the 17th century sheep were apparently kept mainly on the manorial farms, although two other holdings supposedly still had c. 1800 sheepwalk for 240 and 180 sheep respectively. (fn. 96) In 1618 Feltons and Bassingbourns manors had each been entitled to sheepwalk for four hundred beasts, Coggeshalls and the Abbey estate for three hundred, probably in long hundreds of 120 animals. By the 1670s such large flocks were overburdening the pastures, and the manorial lessees agreed to halve their size. (fn. 97)

The North fen, styled by 1543 the Horse fen, from which sheep and oxen were excluded after Lady Day by 1540, was thereafter reserved from March to November for farmers' working horses, though each commoner was also allowed three weanling calves there. (fn. 98) Horses commoning there in the 17th century had to work three days a week. By the 1670s craftsmen and occupiers of less than 20 a. might not keep more than two horses each there. Sheep, allowed on that common only in winter, like cattle, grazed mainly on West fen, though from 1698 they were barred from doles there between April and November. Sheep could enter upon the openfield 'rye stubble' ten days after harvest; cattle, still required in 1659 to feed together in the keeping of a common herdsman, apparently still acting c. 1740, might feed on the 'barley stubble' after six days. (fn. 99) Frequent deaths in the 1790s, 280 perishing in 1795, among the 1,800 Norfolk sheep then kept were ascribed to foot rot on ill drained soils. (fn. 100) By the early 19th century some farmers also kept Southdown sheep, besides milking cattle. (fn. 101)

Of Fordham's 61 taxpayers in 1523-4 the five wealthiest, with 20 marks or more, had paid on c. £115 of some £200 assessed on the village, while only three others were worth over £5, and 33 had only £1-2 each. Of twenty men taxed on wages thirteen probably worked for the five largest farmers. (fn. 102) In the 16th and 17th centuries, despite a practice among yeoman families of dividing holdings among several children, Fordham had a few dynasties of prosperous yeomen, such as the Cheesewrights, two of whom were taxed c. 1523 on £45 and £20. (fn. 103) Five generations of that family were recorded between the early 15th century (fn. 104) and the early 17th. (fn. 105) One who died in 1563 left his freeholds to one son, leaseholds and copyholds to another. (fn. 106) They intermarried with the Hinsons, established by 1500 and providing the wealthiest villager in 1522. (fn. 107) They were lessees of Bassingbourns manor farm from the 1570s (fn. 108) and of Feltons by the 1590s, when one left £740 among his younger children. (fn. 109) The Hinsons who bought up land from the 1550s, (fn. 110) sometimes allegedly took advantage of another family's difficulties to acquire its inheritance, (fn. 111) and remained substantial landowners in the early 17th century. (fn. 112) Their counterparts in the 1660s were the Masons and Bridgemans, whose heads, reckoned as gentry and owning respectively 137 a. and 103 a., then occupied houses with 8 or 9 hearths. (fn. 113)

At that period there were still numerous smallholders: out of c. 2,275 a. (local measure) of arable in open fields and crofts recorded c. 1670, 253 a. belonged to the Abbey estate and, probably, c. 610 a. to the three colleges. Apart from the Stewards' 148 a., there were only seven holdings of 50 a. or more, totalling 588 a., all but 60 a. of which lay in the three more ancient fields. Nine other owners had 20-40 a. and six 10-20 a. each, equivalent to medieval full and half yardlands; such holdings totalled respectively c. 245 a. and 80 a. Forty others with less land, including 25 with under 2 a. each, had barely 120 a. between them. (fn. 114) By the late 18th century Fordham's farming was coming to be dominated by a few families such as the Wilkins, Westropes, tenants under Christ's College from the 1740s, and Fysons, who combined tenancies of manorial and college farms with the accumulation of property in the parish. (fn. 115) Members of the last two families emerged with over 50 a. each at inclosure. (fn. 116)

When first proposed in 1798 an inclosure was rejected by Fordham's leading farmers as without benefit. (fn. 117) An Act was finally obtained in 1809 with little opposition. (fn. 118) Despite some disputes, (fn. 119) the parish was actually divided in 1811. (fn. 120) Formal execution of the award was put off, however, until 1820, (fn. 121) arousing disquiet among some small landowners over uncertainty about their title. (fn. 122) The delay arose from disputes caused by the inclosure commissioners' attempt, after raising £8,456 in 1812, to collect a second rate of £5,690 in 1817 to compensate some allottees who had, through poor surveying, received less than their strict entitlement. Many owners refused to pay. (fn. 123) The area allotted, including croftland and inclosures exchanged, came to 3,201 a.; the 17th-century inclosures from fenland to the north and west, like the ancient closes around the village, were not involved. (fn. 124) Much land changed hands during the inclosure. William Dunn Gardner (I) purchased land from seven landowners, while Robert Hayward added to the Stewards' former farm the holdings of at least six others. (fn. 125) After c. 775 a. had been allotted for glebe and tithe, Dunn Gardner emerged with 520 a., including 85 a. of closes, and the three colleges' manorial farms with 650 a. between them. Hayward had 225 a. and William Coote, the next largest landowner, 217 a. Four others, some non-resident, emerged respectively with 135, 117, 67 and 60 a., while eight more with 25-45 a. each had 267 a. in all. The remaining allottees, occupying altogether only 190 a., were smallholders: twelve had 5-12 a. each, but 65 others less, including almost forty receiving under 2 a. Their minute allotments, averaging 1¼ to 2½ a., many probably for common rights, were largely laid out north and west of the village in Block and Clipsall fields, and in the former moor by a newly made road. (fn. 126)

Following inclosure the parish continued to be dominated by a few substantial farms, such as the twelve rentable c. 1803 at over £100, half yielding over £200, which usually combined land held under various owners. Among the largest farms were those, such as two then occupied by the Blands, that were based on the Fordham Abbey estate. Robert Hayward, before 1830, and the Cootes and Fysons, the latter Trinity Hall's lessees until 1857, also assembled considerable holdings around their owner occupied property. (fn. 127) In the 1850s there were up to ten smallholders working 25 a. or less, but the bulk of the farmland, c. 3,400 a., was included in twelve holdings of over 100 a., and two thirds of it in the six largest. Most farms, even the larger ones, were occupied by men born in the parish. (fn. 128)

About 1910 six farms of over 200 a., including two over 400 a., covered 1,790 a. altogether, and six more with over 100 a. comprised another 925 a. (fn. 129) About 1900 barely 450 a. of Fordham's farmland was owner-occupied. (fn. 130) The Abbey estate, on which, as on the Cootes' property, rents were reduced by a tenth in 1879, (fn. 131) included, until its break-up from the 1910s, four large farms, covering much of the east and south of the parish: Moor farm, 292 a., partly in Soham; Lord's Barn farm, 144 a.; Slate farm, 305 a.; and Biggen farm, 277 a. (fn. 132) Slate farm was worked from c. 1850, usually through a bailiff, by the Robinses of Isleham, also tenants under Christ's College by 1880. (fn. 133) By the 1920s part of the land bought by the county council, especially Moor and Block farms, had been divided among smallholders, numbering ten c. 1925, 5-6 in the 1930s. (fn. 134) Smallholding later increased: of c. 80 holdings reported in 1950 three quarters were under 50 a., including 24 of less than 5 a., and only five covered over 150 a. (fn. 135)

The mid 19th century had seen sharp hostility between the farmers and their labourers, of whom 30-40 out of 329 adults were unemployed in winter c. 1830. (fn. 136) The fires that frequently destroyed or damaged farmhouses, farmsteads, and cornstacks, were usually until the 1850s ascribed to arson. The Blands' Biggen farm suffered in 1829, (fn. 137) two others in 1844-5, (fn. 138) and three more on Market Street in 1848, when some villagers allegedly refused to help save them. (fn. 139) In 1849, after the farmers, who as strong Protectionists blamed Free Trade, had cut their employees' wages to 7s. a week, many labourers demonstrated, breaking ploughs on R. D. Fyson's farm, burnt down soon after. (fn. 140) He and three other farmers suffered such fires again in 1851. (fn. 141) From the 1850s the Fysons held horkeys after harvest for their 45-50 workers, (fn. 142) a practice soon followed by other farmers. (fn. 143)

In 1851 the farmers had work for c. 210 adult labourers, two thirds on the six largest farms, and 13 boys: in the 1850s the village had available over 160 grown men and up to 40 younger ones, besides 40-60 girls doing farmwork. (fn. 144) The number of adult labourers had fallen to c. 105 by 1881. (fn. 145) A Michaelmas hiring fair was still held at a Fordham inn c. 1860. (fn. 146) In 1930 Fordham's farms were employing 143 full-time male workers and 36 more part-time, and in 1950, after extended wartime cultivation, 172 and 57 respectively, but by 1970, when there were over 40 working farmers, a quarter part-time, it had only 56 full-time farm labourers. (fn. 147)

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries over half the farmland was arable, (fn. 148) even on the former fenland. (fn. 149) One college at least still required a four-course rotation c. 1880. (fn. 150) The area under cereals, c. 1,700-800 a. from c. 1870 until after 1910, fell to c. 1,500 a. by 1930 before recovering. Until after 1910 wheat predominated, perhaps more than before 1860, (fn. 151) over barley. By 1950, however, the area of barley was triple that under wheat, those crops covering respectively c. 1,300 a. and 460 a. in 1970. Potatoes and turnips were also grown by the 1850s, (fn. 152) the latter rootcrop covering over 400 a. by 1890 before declining. Mustard, cultivated in 1848, (fn. 153) covered 152 a. in 1930, but later almost disappeared, whereas the area under sugar beet, grown by 1930, had increased by a half to over 660 a. by 1970.

The grassland, of which two thirds was usually permanent, and whose total area rose slightly from c. 900 a. in 1870 to c. 1,100 a. 1890-1910, before declining steadily to 600 a. by 1970, had helped support c. 1900 flocks including c. 2,000 grown sheep. Few sheep were kept after 1930. Instead numbers of cattle, mostly for milk before 1970, rose gradually from 300-400 c. 1930-50 to over 1,000 in 1970. Between the 1860s and 1890s Fordham had one or two specialist cattle dealers, (fn. 154) and in 1937 two dairymen, also by the 1930s two or three poultry farmers: (fn. 155) over 8,000 fowls were kept in 1930. An egg-packing plant at the south-west angle of the village, opened c. 1980, then employed 55 people. It closed in 1989. (fn. 156)

From the 1850s Fordham contained three or four nurserymen and seedsmen, (fn. 157) including until after 1900 two of the Blands. They partly specialized in developing and growing seeds, especially for rootcrops, (fn. 158) on nurseries largely laid out just west of the village between the Soham and Burwell roads, conveniently close to Fordham station. (fn. 159) In 1861 the Blands and Townsends between them employed over fifty labourers. (fn. 160) The latters' nursery was started by George Townsend (d. 1881), in business as a seedsman by 1848. (fn. 161) By 1870, when he also grew flowers, he employed 30 men on a 600-a. holding. (fn. 162) In the 1870s his firm won prizes for its turnips and swedes at Norwich shows. (fn. 163) Of his 223-a. Fordham estate sold in 1893, mostly west of the village, 18 a. was used for nurseries, including glasshouses. Part was then occupied or bought by his sons George and Charles Townsend, who had divided the business when he retired. The younger George, holding the 300-a. Biggen farm by 1881, (fn. 164) traded in seeds at Norwich from the 1870s until c. 1910, when two or three other nurseries had begun business. Charles, who controlled the Townsend nurseries west of Market Street, sold his produce from 1890 at King's Lynn (Norf.). By the 1930s and until c. 1960 Charles Townsend Ltd. supplied flowers to Sandringham. Other nurseries still survived at Fordham then, some growers sending flowers to Covent Garden market. (fn. 165) There had been five florists, one a nurseryman, in 1937. (fn. 166) About 1950 Fordham grew almost 400 a. of flowers and vegetables: one man, trading 1924-74, who grew 15 a. of flowers, at times employed 30 people to despatch 950 boxes cityward daily. (fn. 167)

The Townsend firm, having passed to heiresses, was taken over c. 1968 by a Norfolk one, which in 1972 moved its landscape gardening work elsewhere, reducing its Fordham branch to a tree-growing nursery, converted to a garden centre in 1991. (fn. 168) In 1989 a descendant gave the Townsends' former arboretum of ornamental trees behind their Shrubland House east of Market Street, called Townsend Wood, to the Woodland Trust for preservation. (fn. 169) Some land west of the village was still used for nurseries in the 1990s, four or five being in business c. 1995, including one tree-growing business started c. 1984. (fn. 170) From the 1950s the former Biggen farmhouse south of Fordham Abbey served as the headquarters of the Biggen Stud, using the surrounding land. (fn. 171) About 1996 it was taken over for a horse-racing forensic laboratory. (fn. 172)

In 1086 the royal manor had included two mills, probably later alienated. (fn. 173) One was perhaps represented in 1279 by a water mill held by a freeholder of the Norreys manor. (fn. 174) Other Fordham freeholders had in 1239 leased, then c. 1252 sold, to Philip Basset their rights in a water mill called 'Mormilne', (fn. 175) presumably that owned before 1286 by the Earl Marshal and exploited into the late 15th century by Basset's successors as lords at Soham. (fn. 176) It probably stood near Fordham moor, at the north end of the parish where the river Snail bends westward into Soham. Bassingbourns manor included a watermill, once Maud de Kemesek's, c. 1298. (fn. 177) Two water mills were in use in the 19th century: (fn. 178) one, which probably had a steam engine by 1848, (fn. 179) stood, perhaps by the 1520s, (fn. 180) besides the modern Island House, where the Snail divides just south of the village's main bridge. That water mill, worked c. 1895-1915 by the Newports, remained in use until c. 1930. (fn. 181) The other 20th-century water mill derived from one apparently held by a villein of the Richmond manor, and given to the new Fordham priory soon after 1200. (fn. 182) It remained part of Biggen manor until the Dissolution (fn. 183) and was thereafter included in the Fordham Abbey estate until 1929. Then in hand, (fn. 184) that water mill, perhaps the 'Welnemelne' mentioned c. 1320, (fn. 185) stood on the Snail at the north end of the Biggen closes, just south of the modern River Lane. Its millers also employed steam by 1904. It remained in use until the 1910s. The three-storeyed brick building was pulled down c. 1940. (fn. 186) A late 18thcentury greybrick miller's house, on an L-plan with some arched windows on its north front, restored c. 1983, survived in the 1990s. (fn. 187)

Windmill bridge close to Biggen field and the Blackland was so named by the mid 16th century, perhaps from a windmill standing in Kenninghall field, through which a Mill lane ran in 1689. (fn. 188) A six-storeyed tower mill, built after 1840, was for sale in 1846. (fn. 189) A windmill worked by the Livermores, who also occupied the Biggen water mill c. 1880, from c. 1875 until 1892 was perhaps that by the Mildenhall road removed before 1903. (fn. 190) Another, a smock mill, standing from the 1850s on the Isleham road, probably rebuilt by a farmer shortly before it was burnt down in 1877, was rebuilt and again in use in the 1910s, and survived in 1950. (fn. 191)

From the 1270s to the mid 15th century tenants of a market (forum) at Fordham paid yearly rents to the later Duchy manor at Soham. As a former royal demesne estate, it may not have required a charter for holding it. (fn. 192) In 1332 Sir Edmund Hengrave also received the profits of a market on his manor. (fn. 193)

Among those, apparently villagers, accused of disputing a lord's common rights c. 1210 were a smith, a carpenter, a weaver, and a tanner. (fn. 194) A cordwainer was mentioned in 1405 and bakers in 1465 and 1533. (fn. 195) In 1831 67 households in the parish were supported by trades and crafts, compared with 180 engaged in farming; (fn. 196) among them were two or more blacksmiths, carpenters, wheelwrights, bricklayers, tailors, and shoemakers, and a glazier and a joiner, also butchers, bakers, and grocers, (fn. 197) and even c. 1780-1810 watchmakers. (fn. 198) An old-established grocer's and draper's shop was for sale in 1783. (fn. 199) In the 1850s Fordham had three blacksmiths and up to three master carpenters, employing 6-10 journeymen, besides a wheelwright and a plumber. The number of craftsmen supplying shoes and clothing, then including one or two tailors and up to four shoemakers, declined from the 1860s. (fn. 200)

Despite Fordham's relatively large size, and perhaps owing to its nearness to Soham, the number of traditional village craftsmen fell further thereafter: (fn. 201) from the 1870s there was only one blacksmith, though still often 2-3 shoemakers and until c. 1930 a harness-maker and saddler, also c. 1890 another watchmaker. Its wheelwrights took to supplying farming machines: one was supplying and maintaining steam threshing machinery from the 1850s to the 1880s. (fn. 202) There were 2-3 small building firms, also in business from the 1850s, (fn. 203) sometimes built up by carpenters: the last, the Boons', started in the 1890s, was employing 40 people when liquidated in 1982. (fn. 204) Such builders probably helped provide custom for plumbers, plasterers, and house painters, recorded from the 1890s. Besides 3-4 butchers and two or more bakers, the village was well supplied from the mid 19th century to the 1930s with 3-4 grocers and drapers, and until the 1920s as many ordinary shops. The Newmarket Co-operative Society started c. 1935 a small shop still open in the 1990s near the bend of Carter Street, where the village's shops, numbering fifteen in 1973, (fn. 205) were then mostly concentrated. They included, besides an antique shop, one of several recorded in the late 20th century, (fn. 206) and a working carpenter, a Chinese restaurant opened by 1991, (fn. 207) also from 1984 an Asian-owned newsagents' at Market Street green. (fn. 208)

In the late 20th century (fn. 209) Fordham also housed some industry unrelated to agriculture. The Newports, corn merchants from the 1880s, who had also provided farm machinery from the 1890s, started by 1929 a sand and gravel business. (fn. 210) From the 1930s that firm was divided into Allen Newport Ltd., producing sand ballast, and the Euston Lime Co., making lime for farmers. Both were still run from Walton House off New Path in the 1990s. In 1989 they employed 90 people, by 1995 almost 150, to produce concrete and asphalt, using material from East Anglian quarries. (fn. 211) About 1985 a timberprocessing works was moved from near Mill Lane to Station Road, (fn. 212) where a roofing business had been started by 1983. The Fordham Printing Works, also off New Path, started c. 1943, continued there until it moved its works to Mildenhall (Suff.) in 1993. (fn. 213) Other firms still in business at Fordham in the mid 1990s included one started in 1976 on the Mildenhall Road and enlarged in 1980, making commemorative and garden earthenware. (fn. 214) Another on the Soham road, set up c. 1977, made reproduction antique furniture, supplying 76 shops by the 1990s. Its workshops were rebuilt, 1992-4, after a fire. (fn. 215) A firm established at Fordham House to the south from 1980 engaged diversely in financial advice, horticulture, bark products, and music publishing and recording, employing 30 people by 1990. In 1989 it opened in the stables a studio recording popular music. (fn. 216)

A large haulage firm, Turners of Soham, started c. 1947, was established by 1960 at a depot east of New Path, and had 312 employees by 1988: its lorries then made 200 movements daily through the village. (fn. 217) Turners moved its headquarters in 1993 to a massive new building, accommodating offices, workshops, warehousing, a cold store, and a depot for 120 lorries, on a more spacious site south of the village, west of the Snailwell road, bought in 1990-1 from the county council. (fn. 218) East of that road other buildings, gradually added to a core established by 1950, (fn. 219) were partly occupied by a caravanmaking firm, closed in 1975, which had used over half their 155,000 sq. ft. as workshops. (fn. 220) From the 1970s the premises housed a firm collecting and processing scrap metal, (fn. 221) including from 1983 asbestos and cast iron, and after 1989 aluminium. By 1995 it employed over 100 people. (fn. 222) Between their factory and the Snailwell road a small industrial park laid out c. 1990 housed in 1996 seven firms, some engaged in warehousing, transport, and light engineering. (fn. 223)