Witcham is a small village near Ely in

Cambridgeshire Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a county in the East of England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire to the ...

, England. The village is surrounded by fenland farms and has a village hall and a 13th-century church dedicated to St Martin. It has a

pub A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and was ...

called the White Horse, which was the winner of the Ely and District CAMRA Rural Pub of the Year Award 2006, 2010, 2011 and Overall Pub of the Year Award 2011. It also has a fine

village green A village green is a common open area within a village or other settlement. Historically, a village green was common grassland with a pond for watering cattle and other stock, often at the edge of a rural settlement, used for gathering cattle t ...

. The village hosts the World Pea Shooting Championships on the second Saturday in July every year and has staged the competition annually since 1971. Witcham is built around a cross-roads in the centre of the village with each of the four roads having housing on each side for 50-200m. The north-bound street is called "Martins Lane", the east-bound street is "High Street", south-bound is "The Slade", and west-bound is "Silver Street", which leads to the more recent housing developments of "Westway Place" and "The Orchards". Roman helmet

The name of the village derives from "Wycham", meaning "place of the

wych elm ''Ulmus glabra'' Hudson, the wych elm or Scots elm, has the widest range of the European elm species, from Ireland eastwards to the Urals, and from the Arctic Circle south to the mountains of the Peloponnese and Sicily, where the species reaches i ...

s", after the trees that used to grow there in significant numbers. A Roman cavalry helmet dating from the first century AD, known as the Witcham Gravel helmet, was found in the village gravel pit, and now resides in the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

The village school was sited on the South side of High Street, opposite and a little East of St.Martin's church, and was open as an infants and

junior Junior or Juniors may refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * ''Junior'' (Junior Mance album), 1959 * ''Junior'' (Röyksopp album), 2009 * ''Junior'' (Kaki King album), 2010 * ''Junior'' (LaFontaines album), 2019 Films * ''Junior'' (1994 ...

school from 1873 until 1982. When the school closed the pupils instead went to Mepal or

Sutton Sutton (''south settlement'' or ''south town'' in Old English) may refer to: Places United Kingdom England In alphabetical order by county: * Sutton, Bedfordshire * Sutton, Berkshire, a location * Sutton-in-the-Isle, Ely, Cambridgeshire * ...

. A local archive has further images of the school.

Witcham Gravel

Historically, Witcham Parish had several detached portions in the outlying Fens. By 1896, boundary changes had reduced these detached portions to one, separated from the main by a small parish called Witcham Gravel. Witcham Gravel was placed in Ely Urban District, whereas the two parts of Witcham proper were included in

Ely Rural District Ely Rural District was a rural district in England from 1894 to 1974. It was named after Ely, but did not include the city itself, instead covering the rural area to the west and north of it. It formed part of the administrative county of the ...

. This situation persisted until 1933, when Witcham Gravel parish was merged into Witcham.

References

External links

2011 Census

Village Archive

Village Website

Pictures of the 2017 World Pea Shooting Championship in Witcham

Village Facebook Page
{{authority control Villages in Cambridgeshire Civil parishes in Cambridgeshire East Cambridgeshire District