Fulbourn

Fulbourn is a village in Cambridgeshire, England, with evidence of settlement dating back to Neolithic times. The village was probably established under its current name by 1200. The waterfowl-frequented stream after which it was named lies in the east, close to the division between arable and fenland.

Geography

Fulbourn lies about five miles southeast of the centre of Cambridge, separated from the outer city boundary by farmland and the grounds of Fulbourn Hospital. The village itself is fairly compact and roughly in the centre of the administrative parish. North and east of the village the land is flat, drained fen; to the south and southwest the Gog Magog Hills rise to over. Outside the residential area the land is open farmland, with relatively few trees. There is a wooded area, including a nature reserve to the east in the Manor grounds. The village is set within the Cambridge Green Belt. The traditional parish boundaries follow the line of a Roman road and the Icknield Way to the southwest and southeast, Fleam Dyke – an ancient defensive earthwork – to the east, and the tributaries of Quy Water that drain to the River Cam.
Fleam Dyke bears the name of the Hundred of Cambridgeshire called Flendish that was known in the time of the Domesday Book by its Saxon name Flamingdike, pointing to the influence of Flemish immigration into the region. Flemish immigration has marked Fulbourn in various ways, with Fulbourn Windmill the most visible link to this influence. East Anglian English also shows such influence.
The parish extends some five miles north to south and four miles east to west.

History

Archaeological evidence of habitation in the area has been found dating as far back as the Neolithic period, and there have been numerous finds from the Roman and Anglo-Saxon periods. The name has so far been traced back to 991 AD and is thought to derive from the Anglo-Saxon "Fugleburn" or "Fugolburna", meaning "stream frequented by waterfowl".
At one time, the village had two ecclesiastical parishes with both churches in the same churchyard, separated by seven feet; All Saints, believed to be the earlier, and St. Vigor's. Some early maps depict "Fulbourn Magna" and "Fulbourn Parva" as separate villages, but a research project conducted by the Fulbourn Village History Society concluded that there was only ever one Fulbourn.
The site at Hall Orchard, a medieval moated site known as Dunmowes, survives as an earthwork and has a water-filled moat when suitable conditions exist. Excavations showed that the moated area had been occupied from at least the early 13th century until the late 17th century. The moat platform and ditch were probably constructed in the late 12th or early 13th century, with the soil and chalk dug out from the ditch being piled into the central area to create a raised platform. A large drainage ditch at the southwest corner and another at the northeast corner meet the moat ditch. These were probably inlet and outlet channels supplying the moat with continuous running water.
Some clues of the relative wealth and importance of Dunmowes Manor are available from the archaeological evidence. Decorative features associated with the building that were above and beyond practical and utilitarian purposes indicate that the owners intended to impress their neighbours and emphasise their own importance.
By the late medieval/early post-medieval period, most, if not all, of the buildings at Hall Orchard, rather than being thatched, may have been covered in relatively expensive stone roofing tiles. These were later replaced by clay peg tiles, with glazed and decorated finials and ridge tiles. Many fragments were very small, suggesting demolition of the house, with any complete tiles possibly being removed for re-use elsewhere.

The Five Manors of Fulbourn

In Norman times, Fulbourn was recognised as having five manors: Zouches Manor, Manners Manor, Colvilles Manor, Shardelowes Manor and Fulbourn Manor. Of these five, only the last remains today.
In 1496, Richard Berkeley and his wife Anne Berkeley settled a debt of 1,000 marks with property that included the manors of Fulbourn, which were then listed as Zouches, Manners, Shardelowes and Fulbourn.

Fulbourn Life Wall

A granite monument was erected in the village in October 2012, inscribed with dates and images from village life and history. The monument was created by two artists: Andrew Tanser, a master carver and sculptor, and Andrea Bassil, a well-known children's author and illustrator.

Historical detail

A section of the ancient Street way, possibly that known locally by c.1300AD as Grauntestreet and later Grandstreet way, ran from the parish's western edge to pass the northern end of the Fleam Dyke. Few prehistoric remains have been found, except for some Bronze Age weaponry. A probable Roman settlement has left traces in inclosures and droveways visible near the western boundary. A Roman cemetery containing up to 30 skeletons was discovered to the north of the village in 1874, along with an excavation variously identified as a limekiln and a tiled grave. Another Roman limekiln was found further east in 1875 near the station, close to which a Roman pavement was discovered in around 1940.
The parish was well populated from the Middle Ages. In 1086 there were probably c.90 peasant households and by 1279, when 56 messuages and 20 cottages were recorded, c.275 probably resident landholders. Some 80 inhabitants paid tax in 1327 and 426 adults paid the poll tax in 1377. There were still 119 people assessed to the subsidy in 1524, and 105 households in 1563. Following subsequent growth from the 1570s, numbers may have ranged between 400 and 450 in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, increasing again from the 1620s. In the 1660s and 1670s 105 to 110 dwellings were occupied, and 107 adults were reported in 1676. There were 106 families in 1728. The population was probably again stable in the early 18th century, perhaps dropping slightly by around 1740, but began to rise from the 1750s, perhaps by a half by the 1780s. There were 166 households in the 1790s and 702 people in 1801. Until the 1840s, numbers grew by c.150 to 200 in each decade, reaching 1,023 in 1831 and 1,452 in 1851. Pressure was reduced in the 1850s by emigration, especially to Australia. The population reached as much as 1,385 in the 1870s before again declining steadily, with a sharp fall in the 1890s when many young people left, to c.1,200 between 1911 and 1931. Of over 180 men who fought in the First World War 37 perished. New building, which added 250 households to the village in the 1950s and 520 in the 1960s, increased its population to 1,396 by 1961, 4,139 in 1981, and 4,732, including 4,282 in private households, in 1991.
By the 18th century, dwellings in the village mostly stood toward the eastern end of c.200 acres of surrounding crofts and closes. A main street, probably called by 1370 Church Street, linked two groups of tenements along Holm Street to the south, so named by no later than 1200 and later called Home End, and along Eye Street, corrupted some time after 1400 to Hay Street, to the north-east, along whose western side crofts, some walled, abutted upon Eye field in the 1310s. In the late Middle Ages Holm and Eye streets were possibly reckoned as separate settlements, being still separately enumerated in manorial rentals c.1435. From the main street another, the modern Cow Lane, probably called in the 13th century Fen street and in the 14th Low or Nether street, led west towards the village's main watering place, Poor's Well. Possibly in use by 1335 and certainly so named by 1437, it was designated for that purpose at inclosure. Cow Lane then joined a back lane to the south named Pierce lane by no later than 1500.
Of c.40 houses surviving in Fulbourn in the 1980s from before 1800, mostly timber-framed, some under later brick casing, and half still thatched, most stood towards that eastern end of the village, where housing had largely been concentrated in 1800. A few others then stood along the south side of Pierce lane or at Frog End to the west. Those older houses include around ten dating from before 1600, among them some manorial farmhouses. The former Highfield Farm had a 14th-century hall with arched heads to its screen openings, and a two-bayed cross wing; it had another cross wing added after 1600. At Home End the originally 15th-century Old House had its hall reconstructed in the mid 17th century, soon after a parlour cross wing had been added, while at Ludlows, behind a Victorian front, was another early 15th-century hall with an original doorway and six-light window; its soller cross wing comprised a parlour below and two chambers above. Those houses mostly had crownpost roofs, into which red brick chimneys were inserted in the 16th century or later. At Flendyshe House, facing Ludlows where Home End widens into a small green, a rendered façade of c.1807 covered an early 17th-century range with a rebuilt service wing to the rear. Over 20 smaller houses of two to three bays and single-storeyed cottages with dormers dated from 1700 or earlier, some from the 1660s. During the 18th century a line of eight two- or three-bayed cottages, one dated 1735, were built on small crofts south-west of the village along the south side of Broad Green, so named by no later than 1460, where dwellings had been recorded by 1506.
In the 1660s and 1670s, barely 20 of the recorded dwellings had had more than one or two hearths. About 1808 the village contained at least 78 houses, including 15 farmhouses and 42 cottages. There was rapid growth after the 1820s, the number of inhabited dwellings rising from 164 in 1831 to 270–310 between the 1840s and 1900; in the late 19th century another 15–25 were sometimes empty. Meanwhile, new farmhouses had been built on the former open fields to the south and west, including Bishop's Charity, Rectory, Valley, and New Shardelowes Farms. In the village other farmhouses went up on the standard Cambridgeshire pattern of a symmetrical three-bayed grey brick front, sometimes with fieldstone sidewalls, besides rows of labourers' cottages off the main streets, some in brick.
By the mid-19th century there were c.40 houses along the main street, usually still called Church Street, and its northern extension named Apthorpe Street by no later than 1506. Another 35–45 lay in a ribbon along the west side of Hay Street, where two more elaborate terraces of brick cottages were put up in 1885 and 1903. There were almost as many around Home End, with around ten by Broad Green. Another 45–50 reached along Pierce Lane to Frog End, but the parallel Cow Lane to its north was hardly built up. By 1800, a few dwellings were scattered along the roads to Teversham and Cherry Hinton. In 1910 c.80 houses were reported and 190 cottages.
The early 20th century saw little growth, with only 340–350 dwellings being recorded in the 1920s, but around 50 had been added by 1951, mostly before 1939, including a number of council houses. The first 12 had been built in 1925, some near School Lane, and 40 more went up in 1931 and 1939 within the angle of the Cambridge and Shelford roads. By 1950 ribbon building had filled the recently empty east side of Hay Street. From the 1950s, following the arrival of mains drainage, the village was subjected to intensive development, some 280 new houses being built by 1961 and another 500 by 1981. Planning restrictions confined them within the village's previous boundary: some new building was effected by infilling along the older streets, which had c.280 dwellings by 1980 and were almost continuously built up by 1990. Other new housing, totalling 600 dwellings by 1980, lay on c.25 new roads, often densely packed closes, laid out within them. Private building, beginning at the east end, where c.160 houses went up in the 1950s, spread westwards along the south side of Pierce Lane, where c.120 were built in the early 1950s and, after a pause 1965–75, 30 more in 1977–79. Meanwhile, new council housing was concentrated on the south edge of the village, c.50 dwellings rising in the 1950s east of the previously almost unoccupied Haggis Gap, while another 170 were put up to its west c.1965–66. That last estate consisted of factory-built dwellings, sponsored by an enthusiastic council chairman, which were square, grey, and 'barrack-like'. By 1974 the council had also built sheltered housing for 40 old people in Home Close at Frog End; from 1981 similar wardened housing, comprising 33 bungalows, was established further south in 1983. The 1980s saw less extensive new building, although infilling with smaller groups in the remaining gaps continued, as along Cow Lane. In 1981, the 1,188 homes in the parish included 353 council houses and 709 owner-occupied ones, with 126 being privately rented. Of c.450 dwellings added in the 1980s, almost all were privately owned.
Fulbourn at one time had as many as 10 or 11 public houses, one for every 120 inhabitants at the time. These included:

The Plough and Crown, renamed, from 1776, The Six Bells
The Harrow Inn, closed 1911
The Coach and Horses, closed 1902
The Railway Tavern
The Royal Oak
The Loyal Townley
The Ancient Shepherds
The Rising Sun, closed 1956
The Crown and Thistle closed in 1990s