|
Fairford is a market town in Gloucestershire, England. The town lies in the Cotswold hills on the River Coln, 6 miles (10 km) east of Cirencester, 4 miles (6 km) west of Lechlade and 9 miles (14 km) north of Swindon. Nearby are RAF Fairford and the Cotswold Water Park.
First attested as Fagrandforda in 872 CE and as Fareforde in the Domesday book. The components come from Old English from fæger + ford meaning 'clear ford'.
There was a major roundhouse settlement in Horcott (on the south side of the town), and the Welsh Way, which passed through Fairford, was used during this period as a trade route.
Evidence of settlement in Fairford dates back to the 9th century, and it received a royal market grant in the 12th century. An estate in Fairford, which seemingly belonged to Gloucester Abbey, was bequeathed to Burgred of Mercia in the mid 9th century. At the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066, Brictric, a large landowner in the West Country, held a manor in Fairford. Matilda of Flanders came to own the land, which became the property of the Crown. In 1100, Robert Fitzhamon, the first Norman feudal baron of Gloucester, is recorded as owning the land, which would be passed down to subsequent barons of Gloucester for the next 200 years, along with the manor of Tewkesbury.
In 1066 there were three mills in the town, one of which was still used in the wool trade in the 13th century. The mill that survives today was built in the 17th century.
Edward I and Henry VIII visited the town in 1276 and 1520 respectively.
Fairford is recorded as having a prison in 1248. Hundred courts were held by the lord of the manor and borough.
By the 15th century the land of Fairford was managed by wool merchants John Twynyho and John Tame, after George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence was forced to give up his lands after being tried for treason.
In 1608, the inhabitants of Fairford were mostly agricultural labourers or artisans.
Fairford Park, to the north of the town, was built by Andrew Barker in the 1660s and became part of the manor house grounds. It was later turned into a deer park by James Lambe, with an obelisk built to mark the edge of the grounds. The park remained in the Barker family until it was sold to Ernest Cook in 1945.
In 1755, seven innkeepers were licensed in Fairford. The first record of an inn had been in 1419, and more inns appeared over the centuries owing to Fairford's location on routes between larger towns. Stagecoaches often called at Fairford on their way to Gloucester, Cirencester, Bristol, Oxford or London.
The first outbreak of the 1830–31 Swing Riots in Gloucestershire was in Fairford on 26 November 1830. Farming machinery which was being manufactured in the town was destroyed by protestors, who then joined forces with those from the surrounding villages of Quenington, Hatherop, Coln and Southrop.
By this time there were pounds, in the town as well as a village lock-up that had been around since at least 1809.
RAF Fairford was constructed in 1944 as a joint British and American base.
From 1947 to 1959, Fairford housed 1,200 Poles in The Displaced Persons Camp who had been displaced due to the Second World War. The site had originally been an American Air Force hospital that had been built during the war. The buildings were then repurposed for the camp, before being demolished in 1977.
In 2013, a female skeleton was found in the River Coln and was later discovered to be of Sub-Saharan origin. The remains were estimated to be around 1000 years old (between 896 and 1025 CE) and it is thought that the woman was around 18-24 when she died. Until this discovery, the earliest known Africans in Britain were from the 12th century.
|
