The town grew by becoming an important railway centre. Like many Fenland towns, March was once an island surrounded by marshes. It occupied the second largest "island" in the Great Level. As the land was drained, the town grew and prospered as a trading and religious centre. It was also a minor port before becoming, in more recent times, a market town and an administrative and railway centre. March is situated on the banks of the navigable old course of the River Nene, today mainly used by pleasure boats.
History
March was recorded as Merche in the Domesday Book of 1086,[2] perhaps from the Old Englishmearc meaning 'boundary'.[3] Modern March lies on the course of the Fen Causeway, a Roman road, and there is evidence of Roman settlements in the area. Before the draining of the fens, March was effectively an island in the marshy fens. The town probably owes its origin to the ford on the old course of the River Nene, where the road between Ely and Wisbech, the two chief towns of the Isle of Ely, crossed the river.[4] At one time shipping on the River Nene provided the basis of the town's trade, but this declined with the coming of the railways in the 19th century.
A single arch bridge was built over the River Nene towards the north end of the town in 1850. High Street, which is the chief thoroughfare, is continued over the bridge to Broad Street on the north side of the Nene, and The Causeway is lined with a fine avenue of elm and other trees.
A theatre was built for Joseph Smedley in 1826.[5]
A Local Board of Health was formed in 1851, under Act 14 and 15 Vict. c. 10, but by the provisions of the Local Government Act 1894 the town became governed by an Urban District Council of 12 members. Gas lighting was provided by the March Gas and Coke Co. Limited. The Wisbech Water Works Company, under a provisional order obtained in 1884, supplied the town with water, which was brought through mains pipes from Wisbech, 10 miles (16km) away.
March was divided into four ecclesiastical parishes which, with three others, were formed out of the previous parish of Doddington after 1863, under the Doddington Rectory Division Acts of 1847 and 1856 [10 and 11 Vict. c. 3 (1847) and 19 and 20 Vict. c. 1 (1856)].
The area of the entire civil parish is 19,669 acres of land and 108 of water; rateable value, £47,414; the area of the ecclesiastical parishes is
St Mary, 7,143
St John, 3,485
St Peter, 4,072
The population of the civil parish and urban district in 1891 was 6,988; and ecclesiastical parishes viz:
HM Prison Whitemoor, opened in 1991, lies slightly to the northwest of the town. Whitemoor is a maximum security prison for nearly 500 men in Category A and B.[7]
Governance
Until 1974 the area was administered by March Urban District Council, based at March Town Hall.[8] Since then it has been administered by Fenland District Council. March also has a town council. There are three wards, East, North and West; each ward returns four town councillors. A town mayor is elected by councillors at the annual meeting in May each year. The council administers allotments, sponsors band concerts and owns the March Museum.[9] The town also returns councillors to Cambridgeshire County Council. The town is in within the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority.[10] March is in the parliamentary constituency of North East Cambridgeshire.
The headquarters of Fenland District Council are at Fenland Hall, County Road, March. The former County Hall of Isle of Ely County Council, also on County Road, is now Hereward Hall, used by Cambridgeshire County Council.
With a long history of trading, in the reign of Elizabeth I, March was a minor port. In 1566 eight boats, capable of carrying one, one and a half, or two cartloads, were used in the coal and grain trades. A certain amount of traffic in coal and other commodities, carried in barges, was observed by Dugdale in 1657. Local tradesmen's tokens of 1669, and a silver shilling token of 1811, have been noted.
Originally a market appears to have been held near the original town (then village) centre, on land beside The Causeway. A Market Cross (now called The Stone Cross) points towards the existence of an early market and this cross was erected in the early 16th century. This site was very near St Wendreda's Church. In 1669, the town successfully petitioned King Charles II and in 1670 he granted the Lord of the Manor of Doddington a Royal Charter with the right to hold a market with two annual fairs, in spite of the opposition of Wisbech Corporation. This market was held on Fridays. The Lord of the Manor of Doddington, who owned a large part of March, gave special permission to the townspeople to sell their goods on some of his land in the town centre. This site, now called the Market Place, was then known as Bridge Green Common and later named Market Hill.
In 1785, the tolls were assessed at £6 per year. Soon after this the market appears to have lapsed, though the fairs continued to prosper. The development of the market was impeded by the lack of a covered hall and because market day in several neighbouring towns fell on the same day (Friday). In 1807, the Vestry decided that it was not hygienic for goods to be loaded or unloaded in the vicinity of the market and ordered all saw pits, timber and other encroachments around the Market Place to be removed. The market was struggling during this time and an attempt to revive it in 1821 was not very successful. A Buttercross, also known as a market house, was erected in 1831. This building also housed the town fire engine and had an upstairs room that for a time housed the Clock House School and later the Town Surveyor's Office. This office was covered by a turret which housed the Town Clock (purchased by public subscription about 1750) and the Fire Bell. In later refurbishments this clock was re-housed in St Peter's Church Tower. The Town Stocks were also placed in the Market Place and local offenders (and those who refused to go to church) were placed in them. The want of a market house was remedied, in a makeshift fashion, by Sir Henry Peyton (who was the Lord of the Manor of Doddington). His building, however, was only 40ft long (12m) by 17ft broad (5.2m), and provided only 14 stalls under cover.
After the opening of the railway in 1847 another attempt was made to increase the market. In 1851 the market had been said to be "making progress"; and £150 was subscribed to give a treat to the poor at its reopening. The clash with other market days was solved in December 1856 by changing market day from Friday to Wednesday "by private arrangement and without any formalities". The tolls were, however, collected in an arbitrary and haphazard way; they were assessed for poor rate purposes at £10. Statute fairs for the hiring of servants took place each autumn, this was also an opportunity to socialise, and shows and ginger bread stalls were set up, the large numbers could also attract pickpockets.[11] In 1872, the Board of Health bought a Shand and Masonfire engine that was the town's first steam appliance and was housed in the Market House. In the same year the vestry agreed to erect a urinal at the back of the Buttercross for use by boys attending the Clock House School, but would not erect a water closet (toilet).
The market toll-keeper in 1888, though he had no fixed scale of charges and kept no record of receipts, was said to be taking about £50 a year. The success and prosperity of the market fluctuated over the years and an attempt by the Local Board to purchase the market rights to mark Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee of 1887 was a failure. However, in 1897, Sir Algernon Peyton agreed to sell the market rights, the Market Place and Market House to March Urban District Council for £800. At that time the market was leased to F. B. Phillips, who agreed to surrender his lease in 1898 subject to receiving the market tolls for one year without charge.
The market rights passed to Fenland District Council following the local government reorganisation in 1974. The current (2020) market days are Wednesday and Saturday.
Religion
St Wendreda's Church
The inhabitants of the town are served by eleven churches.[12]
The angels under the roof of St Wendreda's church
St Wendreda's Church
St Wendreda, to whom the oldest church in the town is dedicated, is the town's own saint and March is the only known church dedication to her. She was a 7th-century Anglo-Saxon who may have been a daughter of King Anna of East Anglia (killed 654) one of the first Christian Kings of the kingdom of East Anglia. Two of her possible sisters, Etheldreda and Sexburgha, who were the abbesses of Ely and Minster-in-Sheppey respectively, are better known saints. She is also associated with Exning, Suffolk.
The saint's relics were enshrined in gold in Ely Cathedral, until in 1016 they were carried off to battle in the hope they would bring victory to Edmund Ironside, the son of King Ethelred. But at the Battle of Ashingdon the army of King Canute captured the relics and he presented them to Canterbury Cathedral. In 1343 the relics were returned to March, but their final resting place is unknown.
The church is known for its magnificent double-hammer beam roof with 120 carved angels; it is regarded as one of the best of its kind. John Betjeman described the church as "worth cycling 40 miles in a head wind to see".[13] The church describes itself as an evangelical church "with an emphasis on biblical teaching".[14]
Other churches
In Victorian times, other Church of England churches were built in March, nearer to where most of the inhabitants now lived. Thomas Henry Wyatt was responsible for the design of St John's (consecrated 1872),[15] St Peter's (built 1881)[16] and St Mary's (Westry, built 1874[17]). The four March Anglican churches now share a 'Team Ministry'.
Trinity Church is now a joint Methodist and United Reformed Church.[18] It was built as a Methodist church in the late 19th century to replace the small St Paul's Methodist Chapel in Gas Road. Development work was carried out during the late 1980s to convert St Paul's Methodist Church into Trinity Church by joining St Paul's, the United Reformed Church, and the Primitive Methodist church.[19]
Centenary Baptist Church, founded in 1700, is a member of the Baptist Union.[20] Additionally, there is a Grace Baptist church, Providence Baptist, which was rebuilt in 1873.[21]
An Elim Pentecostal Church meets in March Community Centre.[22] March Evangelical Fellowship meets on Upwell Road.[23]Fenland Community Church is unique in the local area in focussing on the needs of people with learning difficulties.[24]
Roman Catholics are served by weekly masses in the Anglican church in Chatteris, the combined parish of March and Chatteris being dedicated to Our Lady of Good Counsel and St Peter.[25]
Folklore
An "old legend told how the people of March in the 13th century endeavoured to build a church on the site where the present cross stands, but the devils were utterly opposed to the proposal. They considered the fenland was especially theirs ... As fast as the people of March dug their foundations and built their church the devils came and pulled the work down... This conflict lasted some years, when the March people, not to be beaten, set up the stone crucifix as an object of terror to the devils. It succeeded in its object. The devils left the town, and that is how the cross came to occupy its present position, which no doubt would have been the better site for the church."[26]
March Museum
March has its own museum, located on the High Street. It is in the building that was originally the South District Girls School, constructed in the 1850s, it went from school to school, until 1976 when the building was purchased by the Town Council. The Museum was opened in 1977.[27]
It is open every Saturday and Wednesday from 10:30 – 15:30 and contains a vast amount of local memorabilia, both from March, and its surrounding villages. Such artefacts include the clock face from the Church of St Mary,[28]Benwick and a large collection of cameras.
Transport
Rivers
The town is on either side of the River Nene (Old Course). A narrow boat marina provides berths and boats for hire.
Roads
The town now has a western bypass to take the A141 and some of the traffic away from the town centre. The B1099 and B1101 pass through the town.
Whitemoor marshalling yards, built in the 1920s and 30s, were once the second largest in Europe, and the largest in Britain. They were gradually phased out during the 1960s and shut down in 1990. HM Prison Whitemoor was built on part of the site. The natural regeneration of the remaining 44 hectares (110 acres) resulted in its classification as a potential country park. In addition, a new housing development was constructed adjacent to the site. However, in 2002, Network Rail identified a need for a supply depot and redeveloped part of the site.
The tracks of the March to Wisbech line remain and currently (2019) a review is taking place to assess reopening the Bramley Line.[needs update] The line has been identified as a priority for reopening by the Campaign for Better Transport.[29]
March March march
The "March March march" is a 30 miles (48km) walk from March to Cambridge, which has been walked in the month of March by students and academics from the University of Cambridge since 1979. The marchers sing the "March March March March".[30][31] The point of the walk is that it is pointless; it has spawned a shorter version called the May Manea Mania.
The town centre has several bars and restaurants. In 2008, the Barracuda Group changed the landmark Ye Olde Griffin Hotel into a "Smith & Jones" branded pub it is now back to being branded as The Ye Olde Griffin Hotel. It is now (2019) part of the Stonegate pubs chain. In March 2011 J D Wetherspoon opened a pub in the former Hippodrome cinema and bingo hall.
The town's major employers are Whitemoor Prison, Tesco and Sainsbury's, and the many food processing factories in the area.
Sport and leisure
March has a Non-League football club, March Town United, who play at the GER Sports Ground on Robingoodfellows Lane. They won the United Counties Division One title in the 1953–54 season and the Eastern Counties League in the 1987-88 season.
Norwood Nature Reserve is a 6.5 acres (2.6ha) site north of the railway station.
Cambridgeshire is a ceremonial county in the East of England. It is bordered by 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 west. The largest settlement is the city of Peterborough, and the city of Cambridge is the county town.
The Fens or Fenlands in eastern England are a naturally marshy region supporting a rich ecology and numerous species. Most of the fens were drained centuries ago, resulting in a flat, dry, low-lying agricultural region supported by a system of drainage channels and man-made rivers and automated pumping stations. There have been unintended consequences to this reclamation, as the land level has continued to sink and the dykes have been built higher to protect it from flooding.
Wisbech is a market town, inland port and civil parish in the Fenland district in Cambridgeshire, England. In 2011 it had a population of 31,573. The town lies in the far north-east of Cambridgeshire, bordering Norfolk and only 5 miles (8 km) south of Lincolnshire. The tidal River Nene running through the town is spanned by two road bridges. Wisbech is in the Isle of Ely and has been described as "the Capital of The Fens".
The Isle of Ely is a historic region around the city of Ely in Cambridgeshire, England. Between 1889 and 1965, it formed an administrative county.
Ramsey is a market town and civil parish in the Huntingdonshire district of Cambridgeshire, England. The town is about 9 miles (14 km) north of Huntingdon. Ramsey parish includes the settlements of Ramsey Forty Foot, Ramsey Heights, Ramsey Mereside, Ramsey Hollow and Ramsey St Mary's.
Fenland is a local government district in Cambridgeshire, England. It was historically part of the Isle of Ely. The district covers around 500 square kilometres (190 sq mi) of mostly agricultural land in the extremely flat Fens. The council is based in March. Other towns include Chatteris, Whittlesey and Wisbech.
Whittlesey is a market town and civil parish in the Fenland district of Cambridgeshire, England. Whittlesey is 6 miles (10 km) east of Peterborough. The population of the parish was 17,667 at the 2021 Census.
Chatteris is a market town and civil parish in the Fenland district of Cambridgeshire, England, situated in the Fens between Huntingdon, March and Ely. The town is in the North East Cambridgeshire parliamentary constituency.
The Wisbech and March line is a railway line between March and Wisbech in Cambridgeshire, England. A number of proposals are currently being investigated relating to the possible restoration of passenger services along the route.
Benwick is a village and civil parish in the Fenland district of Cambridgeshire, England in the historic Isle of Ely. It is approximately 15 miles (24 km) from Peterborough and 30 miles (48 km) from Cambridge. The population of Benwick was recorded as 1137 in the United Kingdom Census 2011 with 452 households. The River Nene passes through the village, which is thus accessible by boat from the inland waterways network in England.
Tydd St Giles is a village and civil parish in Fenland, Cambridgeshire, England. It is the northernmost village in the Isle of Ely, Cambridgeshire, on the same latitude as Midlands towns such as Loughborough and Shrewsbury. In 2011 the parish had a population of 1101.
Wisbech Castle was a stone to motte-and-bailey castle built to fortify Wisbech on the orders of William I in 1072, it probably replaced an earlier timber and turf complex. The layout was probably oval in shape and size, on the line still marked by the Circus. The original design and layout is unknown. It was rebuilt in stone in 1087. The castle was reputedly destroyed in a flood in 1236. In the 15th century, repairs were becoming too much for the ageing structure, and a new building was started in 1478 under John Morton, Bishop of Ely. His successor, John Alcock, extended and completed the re-building and died in the Castle in 1500. Subsequent bishops also spent considerable sums on this new palace. The Bishop's Palace was built of brick with dressings of Ketton Stone, but its exact location is unknown.
Parson Drove is a fen village and civil parish in the Isle of Ely, Cambridgeshire, England. A linear settlement, it is 6 miles (10 km) west of Wisbech, the nearest town. The village is named after the central thoroughfare along which the village developed, a green drove, much wider than the current metalled road (B1166). The population at the 2001 Census was 1,030. The city of Peterborough is 19 miles (31 km) to the west, and the town of King's Lynn is 21 miles (34 km) to the east.
Wisbech is a former United Kingdom Parliamentary constituency. It was created upon the abolition of an undivided Cambridgeshire county constituency in 1885 and was itself abolished in 1918.
Doddington is a village and civil parish lying just off the A141 in the Isle of Ely, Cambridgeshire, approximately half way between Chatteris and March
Guyhirn is a village near the town of Wisbech in Cambridgeshire, England. It is on the northern bank, the North Brink, of the River Nene, at the junction of the A141 with the A47. The population is included in the civil parish of Wisbech St Mary. It is notable chiefly for the Chapel of Ease, a rare example of church architecture of the Interregnum (1649–1660), and as a key crossing point of the River Nene.
Wisbech St Mary is a village in the Fenland District of Cambridgeshire, England. It is 2 miles (3 km) west of the town of Wisbech. It lies between two roads, the B1169 and the A47. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 Census was 3,556.
Elm is a village and civil parish in the Fenland District of Cambridgeshire, England. In Domesday, it is called Helle.
Walsoken is a settlement and civil parish in Norfolk, England, which is conjoined as a suburb at the northeast of the town of Wisbech, Isle of Ely, Cambridgeshire.
References
↑ "March". City population. Retrieved 25 October 2022.
↑ A. D. Mills (1998). Dictionary of English Place-names. Oxford University Press. ISBN0-19-280074-4.
↑ Eilert Ekwall (1991). English Place-names. Oxford University Press.
↑ (ed.) RB Pugh (1953). A history of Cambridge and Isle of Ely. OUP.{{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help)
↑ Neil R Wright (2016). Treading the Boards: Actors and theatres in Georgian Lincolnshire. SLHA. p.185.
↑ "About Us". Catholic Church in March. 29 May 2013. Retrieved 2 April 2017.
↑ Blake, J. L. (1889). Saunders, W. H. Bernard (ed.). "8. A Folklore Legend of March". Fenland Notes and Queries. 1. Peterborough: Geo. C. Caster (published 1892): 16.
↑ "Welcome!". marchmuseum.co.uk. Retrieved 4 February 2004.
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