Fen Ditton - History

History

The site has been occupied since at least neolithic times, and stone tools have been found on the meadows between the village and the river.

The name was first recorded in around 950 as Dittone, meaning "the village by the ditch", derived from the Fleam Dyke, the prehistoric ditch that passed through the village from the river to the edge of the fens at Stow-cum-Quy and can still be seen just to the east of the village. The name was later changed to its present name to distinguish it from Wood Ditton.

The village's history is closely connected to its position on the River Cam, which provided trade throughout the medieval period and its principal connection to other settlements. A large wharf at the western end of the High Street allowed goods to be delivered for the annual Stourbridge Fair between the 12th and 14th centuries, but trade declined in later centuries. The wharf was still in use in 1845, but the opening of the London-Cambridge railway line removed its commercial purpose and it closed. More recently the river has been used primarily for leisure purposes.

A papermill was opened in the parish in around 1550, only the second recorded in England. Standing on Coldham's Brook at the junction of modern-day Ditton Walk and Newmarket Road it had fallen out of use by the early 19th century; it is now occupied by offices.

The first road in the village passed between the river and the church, linking Fen Ditton to Horningsea from at least the start of the 15th century. By the 17th century it had been moved to the east of the church. Neither route to Horningsea is still in evidence, but its route south towards Cambridge is now marked by Ditton Walk and the Wadloes footpath. In the 18th century, a new road was added on the higher ground to link the Newmarket Road to Fen Ditton and Horningsea and now serves as the main route through the village. The railway line from Cambridge to Fordham which opened in 1884, ran through the southern half of the parish.

The area known as Fen Ditton Fields was part of the parish until it was transferred to Cambridge in 1938. With the expansion of Cambridge, housing was built on the fields in the first half of the 20th century, and it also contains Cambridge's only remaining cemetery that takes new burials. The area is now bounded by the former railway line, Coldham's Common, and Cambridge Airport. Pye Telecommunications, pioneers of the use of radios in taxis, opened their site in this area in 1944 until taken over by Philips in the 1980s.