Elm, Cambridgeshire

Situated in the Fens, much of the parish would have been undrained salt marsh and salt lagoon, with any higher areas, such as that around Wisbech, forming fen-islands. Mesolithic hunter-gatherers would have fished and hunted waterfowl from these islands. Later, farmers would have grazed their sheep and other livestock on the marsh pastures. Scatters of worked flints have been found at Coldham and other sites.[3]

The area was occupied during the Roman period, with domestic finds scattered through the parish, concentrating along the Leam stream, which may have been canalised during the Roman period.[4] Apart from agriculture, there is archaeological evidence of salt processing in the Elm area.

The Great Hey or High Fen was common to the vills of Elm, Leverington, Newton, Wisbech, Outwell, Upwell and Tydd St Giles.[5] Drainage and falling sea levels may have prompted the settlement of Elm by the medieval period. In the 13th century the parish was prosperous enough to fund the building of a significant church.

The lower-lying parts of the parish were probably not fully drained and reclaimed until as recently as the 17th to 19th centuries. Later satellite settlements formed to the south of the parish at Friday Bridge and at Coldham, alongside the Leam, where land was better drained.

The Limes, 18th-century farmhouse in Elm, Cambridgeshire

Elm, or Elme, once had a stop on the Wisbech and Upwell Tramway, known as Elmbridge as it was just over the boundary in Norfolk near to a bridge that spanned the former Wisbech Canal. There were passenger stations serving the parish: Coldham for Pear Tree Hill, on the March–Wisbech line (1847), and Guyhirn on the March–Spalding line (1867).[6]

The canal connected the River Nene at Wisbech to a junction with the Well Creek and the Old River Nene at Outwell, and passed along the northern edge of Elm.[7]

The canal was abandoned, and finally filled in during the 1970s. Parts of it have been converted into a public green lane that starts at the post office, and terminates at the site of Collets Bridge. The tramway that ran alongside the canal was in turn closed to passengers from 1927.[8] It discontinued as a line in 1966.[9]

Besides allotments and market-gardening, a number of apple, pear, and plum orchards have been planted on the better-drained soils close to the village centre in the north of the parish, while the lower-lying peat soils further out are cultivated as high grade arable land. The orchards (some of which have since been replaced by new housing developments) used to attract fruit pickers from London on working holidays. After the Second World War, many of these seasonal visitors would stay at a disused POW camp at Friday Bridge. Today the camp is used mainly by seasonal agricultural workers, including some from abroad.[10]

Thatched farmhouse in the village

A stream, known as The Leam, once flowed from March to Wisbech, past the church, and through the village. This stream has now been drained away, and only survives today as a pond to the south of Elm, at Friday Bridge. In 2018, Elm parish council ordered the removal of bulrushes from the pond.[11]