Fulbourn

Fulbourn lies about 5 miles southeast of the centre of Cambridge and is the next village after Cherry Hinton. With the Cambridge city boundaries to the west, the land north and east of the village is flat, drained fen whereas in the south and southwest the Gog Magog Hills rise up and to the east there is a wooded area, including a nature reserve (Fulbourn Fen), and Fleam Dyke – an ancient defensive earthwork (see post).

In Norman times, Fulbourn was recognised as having five manors but only Fulbourn Manor remains today. A bit of a walk away is Hall Orchard, the site of an Anglo-Saxon moated manor known as Dunmowes which survives as an earthwork; it has a water-filled moat when suitable conditions exist - not today though, as I walked around the length of the bottom of the moat. After that, Fulbourn Fen nature reserve was an interesting walk back to the village.

Back in Fulbourn, there is the Church of St Vigor's with All Saints. A dedication of two churches is highly unusual; at some stage in its early history, Fulbourn became two separate parishes, each with its own church, All Saints and St Vigor’s - All Saint's church was only a few feet away, apparently, and was ruined in May 1766 and the two churches became one. Not far from the church is the war memorial.

Leaving Fulbourn on the road to Cherry Hinton, you drive past Fulbourn Windmill (on low chalk hills looking out to the very flat Fens) and then Fulbourn Hospital (a former Victorian age pauper lunatic asylum, but now providing proper mental health care and appropriate therapy).Read more